A WoRLd oF PoSSiBLE

Transcription

A WoRLd oF PoSSiBLE

O
pen
A World
of Possible
Real Stories About the
Joy and Power of Reading
Edited by Lois Bridges
Foreword by Richard Robinson
New York • Toronto • London • Auckland • Sydney
Mexico City • New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires
Dedication
For all children, and for all who love and inspire them—
a world of possible awaits in the pages of a book.
And for our beloved friend,Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014),
who related reading to life itself:
“Once I began to read, I began to exist.”
b
Credit for Charles M. Blow (p. 40): From The New York Times, January 23 © 2014 The New York Times. All
rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying,
redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without written permission is prohibited.
Credit for Frank Bruni (p. 218): From The New York Times, May 13 © 2014 The New York Times. All rights
reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying,
redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without written permission is prohibited.
Scholastic grants teachers permission to photocopy the reproducible pages from this book for
classroom use. No other part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or
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Cover Designer: Charles Kreloff
Editor: Lois Bridges
Copy/Production Editor: Danny Miller
Interior Designer: Sarah Morrow
Compilation © 2014 Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN: 978-0-545-77774-2
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Peter H. Johnston . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Foreword by Richard Robinson�� 6
Kendall Hailey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Introduction by Lois Bridges�� 8
Joy
Katherine Paterson . . . . . . . . . . .
12
15
Jim Trelease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Colby Sharp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Anne E. Cunningham . . . . . . . . . 72
Glenna Sloan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Carol Jago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Rudine Sims Bishop . . . . . . . . . .
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
17
Helen Oxenbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Jim Burke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Illumination
Naomi Shihab Nye . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Georgia Heard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Pedro Noguera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Marva Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
John Burningham . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Yvonne Siu-Runyan . . . . . . . . . . 86
Susan B. Neuman . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
Deborah J. Stipek . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Janet S. Wong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Alfred W. Tatum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Bill McBride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Kelly Gallagher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Chris Loker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Farin Houk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Yaya Yuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Christopher Lehman . . . . . . . . . . 96
Maria Walther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Dawn MacKeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Alan Lawrence Sitomer . . . . . . . 32
Franki Sibberson . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Claudia S. Dybdahl &
Paul C. Ongtooguk . . . . . . . 101
Linda Alston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Marcelle M. Haddix . . . . . . . . . . 104
Anna Sumida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Transformation
Charles M. Blow . . . . . . . . . . . .
Barry Lane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
40
Sonia Manzano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Michael W. Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Shirley Brice Heath . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Communion
Jimmy Santiago Baca . . . . . . . . 48
Alma Flor Ada . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert . . . 50
Carmen Agra Deedy . . . . . . . . . 117
F. Isabel Campoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Roy Blount, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Phyllis C. Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Juan Felipe Herrera . . . . . . . . . 122
JoAnn Trejo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Lily Wong Fillmore . . . . . . . . . . 124
Robert E. Probst . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Marilyn Jager Adams . . . . . . . . 127
Kylene Beers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Timothy Rasinski . . . . . . . . . . . 130
114
Meenoo Rami . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Jan Richardson . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Ruth Culham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
134
Penny Kittle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Lester L. Laminack . . . . . . . . . .
136
Karen L. Mapp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Maxie Moua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Nancie Atwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
J. Richard Gentry . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Douglas Fisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Adria F. Klein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
142
Jennifer Serravallo . . . . . . . . . . 206
Enrique A. Puig . . . . . . . . . . . . .
144
Linda B. Gambrell . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Grace Mah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
146
Jane Hansen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
148
Imagination
Walter Dean Myers . . . . . . . . . .
150
Jon Scieszka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Ralph Fletcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Margarita Engle . . . . . . . . . . . . .
154
Richard L. Allington . . . . . . . . .
156
Marilyn Burns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
158
Kwame Alexander . . . . . . . . . . 160
Laura Robb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Heidi Mills &
Timothy O’Keefe . . . . . . . . . 212
Advocacy
James Patterson . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Frank Bruni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Lucy Calkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Robert Needlman, M.D. . . . . . . 222
Robert L. Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Awele Makeba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Pam Muñoz Ryan . . . . . . . . . . .
162
Sharon M. Draper . . . . . . . . . . .
164
Pat Mora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
David Lee Finkle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Nell K. Duke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
José M. Cruz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
170
Stephanie Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Kathy G. Short . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Kimberly N. Parker . . . . . . . . . . 236
Regie Routman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Pam Allyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Teresa Mlawer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Rebecca Constantino . . . . . . . . 240
Charles R. Smith, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . 178
ReLeah Cossett Lent . . . . . . . . 242
Joanne Yatvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Erin Gruwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Inspiration
Sue Pon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Victoria Carpenter . . . . . . . 246
Dorothy S. Strickland . . . . . . . .
182
P. David Pearson . . . . . . . . . . . .
184
Wendi Olson . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Donalyn Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
186
Marcus Curry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Patricia A. Edwards . . . . . . . . .
189
Kristina Mundera . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Gay Su Pinnell &
Irene C. Fountas . . . . . . . . .
192
Closing Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . 255
Kevin K. Green . . . . . . . . . . . . .
195
List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Audrey Sakai . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Acknowledgments
This book exists because of our illustrious contributors; we are deeply grateful to
each and every one of you for sharing these seminal and inspiring moments of
your reading lives. We thank you for your wisdom, time, and generosity of spirit.
To my collaborator, Billy DiMichele, Vice President, Creative Development, you
were the heartbeat of the project. Charming Billy, you make all things possible.
To Editorial Director Virginia Dooley, heartfelt thanks for supporting the
work in multiple ways, and to our Teaching Resources colleagues Lynne Wilson,
Adrienne Downey, and Zach Chang, thank you for always providing the help that’s
needed at the exact moment of need. Allison Feldman, your gift of time and space
enabled the project.
Regarding those who helped connect us with contributors, we are especially
grateful to Teresa Mlawer and Andrea Pinkney, both of whom offered invaluable
guidance and kind assistance. For welcomed inspiration and more connections,
thank you Francie Alexander, Pam Allyn, Carol Jago, Judy Koch, ReLeah Cossett
Lent, Bobbi Mason, Judy Newman, Ned Rust, and Halimah Van Tuyl.
Ellie Berger, thank you for your wise counsel. Trent Hanover, Karen Nachbar,
Martha Parlitis, and Mark Seidenfeld, we appreciate your legal support. Ann
Sandhurst and Marilyn Small, we are indebted to you for your permissions expertise.
For patient and thoroughly professional production and manufacturing help,
we are most grateful to our colleagues David Saylor, Meryl Wolfe, Jaime Capifali,
Sawatree Green, Adam Mann, Lisa Serra, Elizabeth Krych, and Rachel Hicks.
Charles Kreloff, thank you for our luminous cover!
To my brilliant design and production team, Danny Miller and Sarah Morrow,
thank you for knowing how to create a beautiful and polished book from a
collection of more than 100 diverse voices. Your expert and tireless efforts never
fail to produce stellar results.
I thank my cousin Dawn MacKeen who shares a literacy story that’s mine, in
part, as well. And Gary, Aislinn, Erin, and Brennan, thank you for being the loves
of my life.
Finally, to our Chairman, President, and CEO Richard Robinson, who
together with his father, Scholastic founder Maurice R. Robinson, has opened a
world of possible for millions of children around the globe: Thank you for seeing,
shaping, and supporting the world of possible in this book.
—L.B.
Open a World of Possible: Real Stories About the Joy and Power of Reading © 2014 Scholastic
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Foreword
e know that children who read frequently and well in school are
more confident learners, with a broader understanding of the world.
They possess the skills that will enable them to be college and career ready
and score better on the tests called for by the new standards.
Yet, we are reluctant to give children the time to read in school or the
freedom to choose the books they want to read. Decades of research show
the connection between reading engagement and reading achievement, but
we still worry about whether we should devote the time to “free reading.”
Perhaps it is counter-intuitive that independent reading—also known
as pleasure reading or reading for enjoyment—is the best path for children
to improve their skills and become fluent and proficient readers. We may
be influenced still by the old-fashioned notion that school must include a
certain amount of drudgery or pain in order to be effective, reminding us
of the little Puritan readers used in 19th Century one-room schoolhouses
which preached that hard work leads to success while pleasure (such as
reading for the joy of it) wastes time.
But research shows us that choosing
the books you want to read (and
Giving children time
perhaps recognizing yourself in the main
to read for pleasure
characters) is the surest way to become
a curious and motivated reader. Giving
in school and at
children time to read for pleasure in school
home is a strategy
and at home is a strategy that will pay off
in greater reading improvement.
that will pay off in
Today, in our schools, there is a rising
greater reading
number of advocates for independent reading,
balanced literacy, and guided reading—all
improvement.
instructional components that reflect studentdriven learning and the principles of John
Dewey. These educators know that children
need to understand the basic building blocks
of written language and to master decoding
and word and sentence recognition by the end of second grade. These
foundational language principles need to be taught actively to every child
in the early grades. But teachers also see a drop-off in their students’
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motivation to read unless they find books that truly interest them, and
advance quickly from graded readers to early chapter books to full, rich
fiction and nonfiction texts.
The success of Scholastic’s Book Clubs and Book Fairs, where children
choose and buy the books they want to read, also suggests that many teachers
and parents understand the importance of independent reading to support
their children’s learning.
Lois Bridges, the editor of this book, who asked for the “reading story”
of each contributor, discovered the wide variety of ways in which people
experience and express their love of reading.Yet these literacy experts
describe experiences that are remarkably like the thoughts of millions of
teachers and parents who see the impact of a book on children’s lives.
Most experiences begin when children suddenly become fluent readers,
almost magically, because they want to find out what happens to the
characters with whom they identify. From Curious George to Harry Potter
and Katniss Everdeen, that excitement is experienced over and over again,
and we see how the magic of books discovered can transform lives.
Like many boys growing up in the mid-20th century, the catalytic
books for me were sports stories by John R. Tunis. These were the books
that first propelled me into reading and a life of helping children find the
books they can and want to read, enabling them to make reading a central
part of their lives.
We invite you to enjoy the wonderful stories here about the joy and
power of reading—and to share these stories, together with books you love,
with the children you support, helping them discover just how to Open a
World of Possible.
—Richard Robinson
Chairman, President, CEO, Scholastic
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Introduction
Open a World of Possible
eading is the ultimate paradox. Every time we lose ourselves between
the covers of a book and immerse ourselves in the lives of other people,
we’re more likely to discover our own. And, oh, what we gain—keener
insights, deeper understanding and empathy, and a grander grasp of language,
ideas, and the world. Every time we open the pages of a book, we open a
world of possible.
The remarkable authors in this volume—literacy experts, language
researchers, librarians, children’s authors, and poets—share the reading
moments that enriched and extended the possibilities of their lives and made
them who they are today.
Walter Dean Myers, former National Ambassador of Young People’s
Literature, captures the life-enhancing nature of reading when he writes:
“Once I began to read, I began to exist. I am what I read—all the books, all
the papers, all the stories. I think that’s what I’ve always been.”
Reading gives life; it also defines and refines life. Boundless, it transcends
time, culture, and place, so that Diana, a schoolgirl in Nairobi, faced with
the challenges of poverty and discrimination, marvels at the strength and
resilience shown by Fern in Charlotte’s Web. LitWorld founder Pam Allyn
explains that Diana discovers that she, too, can be strong. She, like Fern, can
stand up and “from a very hard place of beginning, her heart and spirit, too,
can soar into possibility.”
Stories like Diana’s remind us of why we fell in love with reading in the first
place. Often, it goes back to a single crystallizing moment, when reading became
a portal to a different place or a different life. Our contributors reveal that a
transformative reading experience can occur anywhere—from Alaska to Maine,
from a maximum-security prison to a convent, from a one-room schoolhouse
to an elevated train speeding through the South Bronx. Such an experience can
inspire us to change our lives, as occurred with the child of migrant workers who
became a leading medical researcher, the young man from a working-class family
who became a civil rights activist, the dyslexic child who is now one of the
foremost authorities in spelling. These people credit reading with helping them
dream of a future they hadn’t thought possible. Their stories are our stories. No
matter our medium—digital screen or printed book, magazine or comic book—
reading can impart courage; it teaches us who we are and who we might become.
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Becoming a Reader
The process of becoming a reader seems nothing short of miraculous.
Sometimes, all it takes is getting lost in one magical book (the Harry Potter
phenomenon) for the world to open up and a life to be transformed.
Reading is always something of a mystery that unfolds as we explore: What
titles, topics, genres, and authors will delight and fascinate us and keep us up
well past our bedtimes?
There’s no question that reading makes us smarter. Recent scientific
studies reveal the intimate relationship between reading and intelligence.
Reading boosts everything from our vocabulary to our communication and
writing skills, our analytical ability, memory, and focus. It even enhances
our empathy: new research suggests that those who read more fiction tend
to be more understanding and compassionate. We need only look to the
biographies of statespeople and world leaders, scientists and physicians,
engineers and inventors, writers and artists, entrepreneurs and educators
throughout history to see the role of books in creating exemplary lives.
Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan reminds us, “Books tap the wisdom of
our species—the greatest minds, the best teachers—from all over the world
and from all our history.” “That’s the miracle of literature,” notes novelist
Edward St. Aubyn, “this private communication between one intelligence
and another.”
Those of us who care deeply about children and who work directly
or indirectly with students must understand the joy and power of reading.
Yes, on some level reading is about letters, sounds, and words—but let’s not
become so focused on the mechanics and minutiae that we lose sight of
what made us readers. The great sociolinguist Deborah Tannen maintains,
“There is no understanding without caring.” Skills and drills, exercises, and
exams will never create the thrill that’s needed to win a child’s heart and
make him or her a reader.
Exploring the Anthology
Seven primary themes emerged from the collection of essays
anthologized here. They serve as our organizing framework. Given the
kaleidoscopic nature of reading, it’s inevitable that nearly every essay
reflects multiple themes. The thematic structure of the book is simply
meant to organize our anthology and illuminate our topic—the joy and
power of reading.
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Joy
Oh, joy! Getting lost in a book is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
Transformation
Reading challenges us to take risks, to consider new perspectives and
possibilities, to outgrow our present circumstances and ourselves.
Illumination
Reading illuminates our humanity and expands our circle of knowing and caring.
Communion
The intimate conversation between reader and author—and the language they
use in all its magnificent variations.
Imagination
Our life’s dreams often begin in the pages of a book that sparks our imagination.
Inspiration
We honor those who connect us, at just the right moment, with the text we need.
Advocacy
We celebrate those who work to help others access books and discover the
triumph of reading.
Reading Makes Lives
Our aim is to reveal, through our authors’ stories, the moments of discovery
when they understood the allure of reading; how they first connected with the
passion and power of reading, and when they knew they wanted to spend a
lifetime with books.
If we can capture, explore, and come to understand these transcendent
moments, we can work together to ensure that our students comprehend the
heart of why we read. As the poet Myra Cohn Livingston once wrote: “Books
have more than changed my life—they have made it possible.”
We are deeply grateful to our contributors; each essay is its own miracle.
Together the essays tell a profound story of what reading makes possible:
the best of everything that helps us become kind, hopeful, generous, vibrant
human beings.
—Lois Bridges
To learn more about our illustrious authors and their work, read the Author Note
at the end of each essay—often you’ll find information about their research, their
published books, and how to contact them.
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Joy
Reading makes possible joyful communities
full of endless hope and wonder.
~Yaya Yuan
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Katherine Paterson
Reading What I Love: My Greatest Joy as a Writer
once overheard my grandmother proudly telling someone that she
had taught me how to read. How could that be true? I was five years
old before I ever met my grandmother and I’d always known how to
read. I realize, of course, that I wasn’t born knowing how to read, I just
can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how.
Reading came as naturally to me as talking, and
since we lived in China, I was unstoppable in two
languages by the time I was two years old—much
to my father’s quiet bemusement.
The language in which our mother read to us
was English, and most of the books she read to us
came from England. I remember her wonderful
English lavender smell when I cuddled close as she
read of James James Morrison’s mother who went down to town without
consulting James and has never been heard of since. The hairs prickled on
my neck. My mother would never do such a thing. Or would she?
My problem with reading occurred when I entered the first grade
in Richmond,Virginia. The teacher was hesitant about me. I wouldn’t
turn six until the end of October. I was too young to be in school,
but the Kindergarten teacher in Lynchburg had pronounced me ready,
not because I was already reading, no one at school suspected that, but
because I was proficient with scissors,
a skill that had been forced upon my
clumsy fingers in Chinese Kindergarten
I still hold that the
in Kuling.
greatest joy being
I suspect my first-grade teacher
thought she was teaching me to read
a writer is that I can
and that I was a slow learner. But how
read all I want to
could I imagine that the basal texts with
their “Run, Spot, run!” banalities was
and call it work.
what was known in school as “reading?”
It seemed to me an entirely different
activity from poling on the river with
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Mole and Toad and celebrating with Eeyore a belated birthday. Reading, as
I had always known it, was a life of high adventure—what they were doing
at school could hardly be thought of as life at all, despite the explosion of
exclamation marks at the end of nearly every line.
It took me a while to shake off the torpor of Dick and Jane. My first
published work, appearing the following year in the Shanghai American
School newspaper, read:
Pat, pat, pat,
There is the rat,
Where is the cat,
Pat, pat, pat.
Beside it was an apology from our teacher: “The second graders’ work
is not up to our usual standards this week . . .” Well, it took my writing
many years to escape the deprivations of my early schooling, but my secret
reading never suffered. I still hold that the greatest joy being a writer is
that I can read all I want to and call it work.
•••••
Katherine Paterson is the author of more than 30 books including 16 novels for children and young people.
She has twice won the Newbery Medal, for Bridge to Terabithia in 1978 and Jacob Have I Loved in 1981. The
Master Puppeteer won the National Book Award in 1977 and The Great Gilly Hopkins won the National Book
Award in 1979 and was also a Newbery Honor Book. For the body of her work, she received the Hans Christian
Anderson Award in 1998, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2006, and in 2000 was named a Living
Legend by the Library of Congress. Paterson is a vice-president of the National Children’s Book and Literacy
Alliance and is a member of the board of trustees for Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also an honorary
lifetime member of the International Board on Books for Young People and an Alida Cutts lifetime member
of the U.S. section, USBBY. From 2010–2011, she served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s
Literature. She and her husband live in Vermont. They have four grown children, seven grandchildren, and a
wonderful Golden Retriever named Annie.
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Carol Jago
My Life as a Reader
hen I was ten years old, I was in the car taking my mother
to the hospital to give birth to my youngest brother. The
route to the hospital passed the library and I was unreasonably
(according to my father) insistent that we stop so that I could take
out another book.
That story has passed into family folklore
but it illustrates how I read as a child. I read
anything: lives of the saints, romantic novels,
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Huxley, Hemingway,
F. Scott Fitzgerald—anything and everything
in print without discrimination.
Did I understand all I read? Without
doubt, I did not, but a childhood spent among
books prepared me for a lifetime as a reader. The thrill of opening a
new book has never gone away.
•••••
Carol Jago has taught English in middle and high school for
32 years, is past president of the National Council of Teachers
A childhood spent
of English (NCTE), and serves as an associate director of the
among books
California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. Jago served
as AP Literature content advisor for the College Board and
prepared me for a
has published six books for teachers including With Rigor
lifetime as a reader.
for All and Classics in the Classroom. She has also published
four books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE’s
High School Literature series. Jago has written a weekly
education column for the Los Angeles Times, and her essays
have appeared in English Journal, Language Arts, NEA Today,
as well as in newspapers across the nation. She edits California English, the journal of the California
Association of Teachers of English, and served on the planning committee for the 2009 NAEP Reading
Framework and the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework.
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Rudine Sims Bishop
Reading to Affirm, Inform, and Empower
y parents grew up in the South early in the 20th century. Neither of
them made it past fourth grade. Recognizing that their lack of schooling
limited their life opportunities, they were determined that, through education, I
would have a chance at a better life. I was expected—no, required—to do well
in school. So when I went off to first grade, I dutifully
learned to read—with Dick and Jane, whose bland,
repetitive stories were uninspiring to say the least.
It was at the public library that I discovered the joy
of reading. There I spent hours browsing the shelves
in the children’s room, reading whatever caught my
imagination. I remember somewhere around third grade
devouring the Andrew Lang Fairy Books, and as a preteen, reading books such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering
Heights that I’m sure I did not understand at the time.
What I did understand was the pleasure that good stories offer and the power of
books to introduce me to lives and experiences beyond my own. I was “hooked
on books,” as the saying goes.
Even as a youngster, though, I had felt the absence in books of people who
looked and lived like me. I went on to become an elementary teacher and later
a teacher educator. One of my early research articles featured an interview with
a ten-year-old African American girl who loved to read and told me she was
searching in books for “strong black girls” like herself. She confirmed for me the
capacity of reading to affirm, to inform, and to empower.
I consider it a blessing that reading, an activity that brings such great pleasure,
was also at the heart of what I did for a living.
•••••
Rudine Sims Bishop is professor emerita at Ohio State University, where she specialized in children’s literature with a
particular interest in the literatures of underrepresented groups, especially African Americans. She served on the 1992
American Library Association’s Newbery Award Committee, the 1999 Caldecott Award Committee, and is currently
on the Coretta Scott King Awards jury. She is the author of multiple journal articles, professional book chapters,
and several books including Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children’s Fiction,
Presenting Walter Dean Myers, and Free Within Ourselves: The Development of African American Children’s Literature.
For children, she has published Wonders: The Best Children’s Poems of Effie Lee Newsome and Daniel Alexander
Payne: Great Black Leader. Dr. Bishop was the recipient of the 1996 Arbuthnot Award, given by the International
Reading Association to an outstanding college or university teacher of children’s literature. She has also received the
National Council of Teachers of English Distinguished Service Award, the NCTE Outstanding Elementary Language Arts
Educator Award, and the 2013 NCTE James Squire Award. Additionally, she is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame.
15
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Jim Trelease
What Reading Is Really All About:
My View from the Mountain Top
I
learned to read in first grade, St. Michael’s School, Union, New Jersey. My
teacher was Sister Elizabeth Francis. There were 94 children in one classroom
and the only aide Sister Elizabeth Francis had was the one hanging on the cross
in the front of the room. We practiced phonics drills,
read from a Dick and Jane reader, and did myriads
of worksheet pages. Those covered the mechanics of
reading. But the motivation to read, a far more important
ingredient, came from elsewhere.
Like Scout and her father in To Kill a Mockingbird,
my father would pull me onto his lap each night in our
four-room apartment and read aloud the comics page
from the Newark Evening News, explaining as best he could
the strange relationships in “Li’l Abner” and “Rex Morgan, M.D.,” or the bossemployee contests between Dagwood and Mr. Dithers. He also read serialized
novels from the week’s Saturday Evening Post. Added to that were the daily readings
at 1 pm when Sister Elizabeth Francis stilled 94 hearts and lips with her chapter
book readings of Wopsy—the story of a fledgling, and often inept, guardian angel.
The classroom mechanical drills were painfully boring for an active six-yearold but the read-alouds had given me a reason to endure the drudgery. I’d been to
the mountain top, enjoyed the view, and therefore knew what reading was really
all about. Not long-As or short-Es. It was Nancy and Sluggo, Dick Tracy, and the
Phantom. While most of my classmates were focused on Dick and Jane, I was
looking ahead to Superman and Batman comics, Mad Magazine, and Classics Illustrated.
•••••
Since writing his million-copy bestseller, The Read-Aloud Handbook, in 1982, Jim Trelease has traveled to all 50
states and abroad, advocating the benefits of reading aloud to children. In doing so, he’s won the applause of both
teachers and parents for his pleas on behalf of literacy efforts that contain less “pain” and more focus on turning
books into friends, not enemies. While more than 60 colleges use his book as a text for education students, Korean,
Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Spanish editions now reach parents and teachers worldwide, even inspiring the
successful “All of Poland Reads to Kids” campaign. The Read-Aloud Handbook, 7th Edition, is complete with new
children’s titles and recommendations, as well as old favorites. This new edition has the latest news on reading
aloud, SSR, libraries in the e-book age, boys’ learning habits, and the latest findings on digital learning (good news
and bad). This is Trelease’s “retirement” edition. (Photograph of Jim Trelease by Connor W. Reynolds.)
16
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Colby Sharp
A Place to Fall in Love with Reading
’m not one of those reading teachers who loved reading when I was a
small child. I didn’t enter Kindergarten a reader and I was never really
one of those kids that you would call “above grade level.” Every day, I did
what the teacher asked: I followed along in our basal, read aloud when called
on, and flipped pages during independent reading,
pretending to be engaged with my book. I read, but
I wasn’t a reader.
It took me until fourth grade to finally discover
the magic of books. My teacher read Gary Paulsen’s
Hatchet to the class and, for the first time in my life,
I became truly absorbed in a book. I thought about
Hatchet all the time and completely identified with
the main character, 13-year-old Brian Robeson.
For the rest of the school year, I was obsessed with Brian and his fight for
survival in the Canadian wilderness. I even convinced my parents to buy me
my very own hatchet. (I still have it!)
Every day after school, I would run home, grab my hatchet, and head
over to the woods behind the school. Once I got there, I became Brian: I
built shelters, hunted for food (I never killed anything), and I searched for
ways to be rescued.
Today, I am teaching in the very elementary school where I fell in love
with Hatchet as a boy. My classroom is a mere 30 feet from the woods where
I spent all those afternoons pretending that I was that Gary Paulsen character.
As I enter my classroom every day and see those woods through the window,
I can’t help but get excited about my 28 third graders who are looking for
their own place to fall in love with reading.
•••••
Colby Sharp is a husband, father, and a third-grade teacher in Parma, Michigan. He blogs at Sharpread, and is
the co-founder of the Nerdy Book Club.
17
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Helen Oxenbury
Saved by the Library
had asthma as a child. There were no inhalers in those days, which
would have enabled me to carry on normally. Instead, I was confined
to bed and missed a lot of school days. No television and no computer
games to keep me amused—just piles and piles of old envelopes and
wrapping paper to draw on, lots of crayons, and,
of course, books. I was left (quite happily) to
myself for hours. My father was at work and my
mother was busy around the house. During the
war years, my father was an architect, and most of
the books in our home were technical books—
plumbing and drainage manuals and such—not
very inspiring for a small child. My parents were
not great readers, although, late in life, my mother
took to reading in a big way.
So as a child, I had to rely on the
local library. Every Friday morning my
father would collect my previous week’s
What would I have
books and take them back to the library.
I could hardly bear the waiting for him
done without that
to come home. In the evening when he
library when I was
returned from work, he would come
into my bedroom with a fresh pile of
growing up? And
books under his arm. I still recall the
how many people
excitement of looking through each
one to see what was going to be in
must feel the same
store for me that week. These treasured
today? I hope
books were, I see now, quite dreadful
and boring and badly printed by today’s
libraries never
standards, but they inspired my love of
cease to exist.
books. One, especially, I read over and
over again and I remember it vividly to
this day. It was called The Good Master
by Kate Seredy.
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18
Kate, a wild and undisciplined young girl, is sent by her father to stay
with his brother. Kate’s uncle lives on a ranch on the Hungarian Plains.
Horses play a large part in the story as does Kate’s cousin, Jancsi, who has
been brought up with horses and rides like a dream. He somehow manages
to teach the willful Kate to ride and they have great adventures together. Only after a great deal of wonderfully funny and outrageous behavior
does Kate settle down and become one of the family, loved by them all,
and guided by the hand of the kind and wise father, the good master.
Finally, joy oh joy, Kate is given her own beautiful white horse.
What would I have done without that library when I was growing
up? And how many people must feel the same today? I hope libraries
never cease to exist.
•••••
One of the world’s most acclaimed children’s illustrators and twice winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal,
Helen Oxenbury grew up in Suffolk and attended the Ipswich School of Art. During vacations, she helped out
at the Ipswich Repertory Theatre Workshop and went on to study Theatre Design at the Central School of Art
in London. Over a three-year period, she worked at the Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv, returning to England to
work in repertory, theatre, film, and television. Oxenbury’s numerous books for children include the Quangle
Wangle’s Hat by Edward Lear which won the Kate Greenaway Medal; her classic Board Books for Babies; We’re
Going on a Bear Hunt, probably her best known picture book, re-told by Michael Rosen; Farmer Duck by Martin
Waddell which won the Smarties Book Prize; So Much by Trish Cooke, which won the Kurt Maschler Award; and
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its companion, Alice through the Looking Glass, both by Lewis Carroll.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland won both the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Kurt Maschler Award. She also
illustrated King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bentley, which was short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal in
2013 and When Charley Met Grampa by Amy Hest, which was published by Walker Books in 2013. Oxenbury and
her husband, John Burningham, live in London where Helen works in a nearby studio.
19
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John Burningham
Nothing Like a Good Book
was very lucky to have been a child when there was no television
or digital games, apart from the few radio programmes that were for
children. The great luxury was being read to by my mother before I went to
sleep. The stories were a mixture of the classics and lavishly illustrated works,
which we call picture books today.
Growing up during World War II, there were
times when my family and I had to live in a caravan
(trailer). I vividly remember hearing the rain
thundering on the roof of the caravan and, if the
story that I was hearing read aloud got a bit scary
such as the rather frightening sequences in Treasure
Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, it didn’t matter
because my parents were never far away.
I learned to read quite late and got great pleasure
from books. Today it pleases me a lot that I have managed to write stories for
children that have been around for more than 50 years, have been heard over
and over again, and are now going head-to-head with addictive computer
games. I must be doing something right!
•••••
John Burningham studied illustration and graphic design at the Central School of Art, graduating with
distinction in 1959. Many illustration commissions followed, including iconic posters for London Transport,
before the publication of Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers, Burningham’s first book for
children from Jonathon Cape in 1963, which won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration and
heralded the beginning of an extraordinary career. Burningham has since written and/or illustrated over 30
picture books that have been translated and distributed all over the world. These include his classic and much
loved children’s books and various books for adults including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming; Mr
Gumpy’s Outing, also awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal; Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne;
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Granpa, later made into an animated film; Oi! Get Off Our Train;
The Time of Your Life; and When We Were Young. Tug of War was republished in 2012, and a special edition
of Borka, celebrating 50 years in print, was published in June 2013. Picnic appeared in the autumn of 2013 and
The Way to the Zoo was published in the UK in 2014. Burningham is married to illustrator Helen Oxenbury. They
have three children, three grandchildren, and a dog named Miles. They live in London.
20
bF
Susan B. Neuman
Love at First Sight
or me, it was love at first sight. One of my first literary memories is
reading a big picture book of Bible stories about David and Goliath,
Samson and the lion, and all the wonderful heroes and villains in the Bible. The
stories were a bit scary, but so vivid and compelling that I would want to read
them again and again.
My love of books obviously took me to the library.
And in those days, the librarian was formidable and
quite stern. There were rules, she would say, that needed
to be respected: No talking, hardly any whispering, a
very strict check-out policy, and library fines galore. You
were only allowed to take 10 books out each week—no
more, so I devised a strategy. Each week I would take
a shelf of books at a time from the biography section,
starting with A. Week by week, I would strategically go through the alphabet,
reading everything I could grab, satisfying my hunger for learning.
Carrying so many books home, some would inevitably fall out of my
young hands and hit the ground. This put me into a panic, wondering what
the stern librarian would think. Was the binding damaged? Did I get mud on
the pages? Still, if she looked more closely, I trust she would have seen what
probably had convinced her to become a librarian in the first place—the sheer
joy and delight of a young child learning through books. That early excitement
transformed me into a lifelong reader.
•••••
Susan B. Neuman is a professor and chair of teaching and learning at New York University, specializing in early
literacy development. Previously, she served as a professor at the University of Michigan and the U.S. Assistant
Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Early
Reading First program, developed the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program, and was
responsible for all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act. Neuman has served on the IRA Board
of Directors and other boards of nonprofit organizations. She is currently the editor of Reading Research Quarterly.
Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction,
PreK–Grade 3 for children who live in poverty. She has written over 100 articles and authored and edited 11 books,
including the Handbook of Early Literacy Research (Volumes I, II, III) with David Dickinson, Changing the Odds for
Children at Risk, Educating the Other America, and Multimedia and Literacy Development. Her most recent book is
Giving Our Children a Fighting Chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital.
21
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Janet S. Wong
Reading Made Me Useful
ast month I was outside the vehicle registration office at my local DMV
when I heard a desperate young mother pleading with her Kindergartenage son on the phone. Over and over she asked him to read the car’s VIN
number to her. After she ended her call, she told me that she needed to renew
the registration in the next 15 minutes, before the
office closed, but her five-year-old son kept giving her
the wrong number.
Poor kid. I know how it is to grow up in a family
where reading is something that you need to know to
be useful. It’s a lot of pressure.
Four years old: I learned to read and write in
a hurry because my mother needed help at her tiny
beauty shop. When someone needed to book an
appointment, I turned to the right page (or sometimes the wrong page) and
they’d spell their names and recite their phone numbers. (Many thanks to the
ladies who were incorrectly booked for their shampoos-and-sets and always
said it was fine.)
Seven years old: While my friends were reading Nancy Drew, I was
reading letters from Medicare and the IRS. This is how it is when your
grandparents cannot read English, your parents and uncles work long hours,
and government offices stop answering
phones at 5 pm.
Twelve years old: My father wanted to
start a company and needed someone to edit
his business plan. What did “procurement”
mean? Reading helped me figure it out.
In many working-class immigrant
families, the oldest child acts as social
worker, translator, interpreter, and scribe
for parents and grandparents.You get no
praise for it because there is rarely good
news from the government.You never tell
22
I was reading for
no reason—or for
the best reason:
the pure joy of it.
b
your teachers about this “extra stuff ” that you need to do, but you carry
this responsibility everywhere you go. At the library, you skip stories and
look for nonfiction because you’re reading to build real-world knowledge.
Poetry? Definitely not useful. If only there were books on VIN numbers
and practice sheets for medical forms!
This is the kind of thinking that led me to my job as a lawyer. But
then, in a bookstore one day with my two-year-old cousin, I found myself
sitting on the floor and reading picture books. What fun! I was four years
old again—but this time, the reading was totally purposeless. I was reading
for no reason—or for the best reason: the pure joy of it.
Now, as a children’s author, I have found the perfect balance. When
I read for joy, I am simultaneously keeping current in my profession.
Poetry? It’s not only useful, it is essential. Poetry is a multivitamin for the
soul. Read a poem today to a child. It might be the most useful thing you
can do.
•••••
Janet S. Wong is the author of 30 books for children, as well as a co-editor (with Sylvia Vardell) of The Poetry Friday
Anthology series of professional resource books (learn more about this series at PomeloBooks.com). A graduate
of Yale Law School, Wong’s dramatic switch from lawyer to children’s poet has been featured in O Magazine
and on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Paula Zahn Show, and Radical Sabbatical. She has been honored with her
appointment to the NCTE Commission on Literature, the Excellence in Poetry Award Committee, and the IRA
Notable Books for a Global Society Committee. A frequent speaker at schools and conferences, Wong travels two
weeks each month—but “home” is her very useful kitchen counter in Princeton, New Jersey, where she makes her
appointments, pays medical bills, and calculates taxes. See more about Wong at janetwong.com.
23
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Bill McBride
My Life as a Reader: A “Classic” Journey
y first ride was emerald green with lots of chrome that shimmered in
the hot Southern sun. It had dual front headlights and an angry hornet
of a horn that got people’s attention. It was pretty cool until my Dad attached
the oversized basket to the front bars, giving my Schwinn Speedster the look
of a Corvette with a luggage rack. But with over 100
homes on my afternoon paper route, the bulky basket
was a necessity.
Each afternoon, a group of us 12-year-old paperboys
congregated down at Mrs. Wiltshire’s General Store,
staring through the Merita Bread screen door, watching
for the Richmond Times Dispatch truck to pull over across
the street and deposit bound loads of newspapers on the
ground. Mrs. Wiltshire didn’t mind us hanging out in her
store. We paced the old wooden floors and always bought cookies and candy to
last us through our arduous routes. Perhaps our favorite treat was to reach our
sweaty little hands into the ice cold water circulating in the long Pepsi cooler,
pulling out sodas, searching for our favorite. A 16-ounce Pepsi could get me
through my entire route in the suburbs under construction outside Richmond.
In the 1960s aluminum cans didn’t exist—only bottles. Construction
sites were often littered with empty soda pop bottles. Cleaned bottles could
be turned into the grocery store for two cents, so as I threw out each rolled
newspaper, I tried to replace it with a bottle. I’d spend Friday night cleaning
my loot with the garden hose and on Saturday morning take them to Colonial
Supermarket to reap my profits.
As soon as the cashier at Colonial handed me my coins, I headed straight to
Ben Franklin—a Five and Dime. I went there for three reasons. One—it was
air-conditioned. Two—I could get a hot dog, a bag of chips, and a coke made
from syrup and carbonated water for less than a dollar. And three—they had a
comic book stand.
Now comics are pure genius. Each one always ends in a cliffhanger, so you
have to go back around the first of the next month to find out if Spiderman
fell to his death, or the Fantastic Four had been reduced to the Not-So-Terrific
Three. Because only two or three copies of the next sequel would suddenly
appear in the rack, you had to go early and often. If some other kid got your
favorite, you lived a month of torture. Is he dead? Were they evaporated?
24
As soon as I got to the comic book rack, I spotted the newest Flash (my
favorite). Then I’d stand there and read as many other comics as I could before
my legs gave way. You see, I was cheap. These things cost 12 cents—that was six
bottles! I was only going to buy one, so I had to read, and remember, all the other
stories of Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Superwoman, Green Lantern, and so on.
On one particular Saturday, I noticed a Classic Comic with a country boy
on the cover, a white fence and paint brush, and a kite. Having flown kites, I was
curious and reached for it. Uh-oh! It was thicker, had more words, and worst of
all, cost 7½ bottles, i.e., 15 cents! But I started reading and soon was transported to
Hannibal, Missouri, and the world of Tom Sawyer.
That journey would take me, a decade later, to the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill where I majored in Literature. Of all my purchases
made from that comic book rack, I have only one Flash left, but I still have every
Classic Comic I ever bought—from Tom Sawyer to The Iliad.
Why am I a reader? Well, I was lucky enough
to grow up with only three TV channels in
black and white. I was lucky enough to grow
I was lucky enough
up without video games or Facebook to isolate
to grow up when . . .
me. I was lucky enough to grow up when
testing hadn’t taken over schooling, and the most
the most wonderful
wonderful thing a teacher might say was, “Go
thing a teacher might
to the library and pick out a book.” And I was
lucky enough to grow up without the Internet
say was, “Go to the
that seems to have turned many of our children
library and pick out
into skimmers and scanners rather than real
a book.”
readers. Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate the
amazing technological world we live in, but I am
so thankful for dirty Pepsi bottles, Ben Franklins
with comic book racks, and reading simply for
the sheer joy of it.
•••••
b
Bill McBride, Ph.D., is a well-known international speaker and educator. He is presently Author-in-Residence for
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. McBride is best known for his heartwarming novel Entertaining an Elephant. He has also
published Carrying a Load of Feathers, Building Literacy in Social Studies, Reading Toolkits for Social Studies, and
If They Can Argue Well, They Can Write Well which shows teachers how to use classroom debate to teach Internet
research, critical thinking, and argumentative writing. His book What’s Happening? is a Tier 2 reading program for
secondary struggling readers. McBride’s latest book is the graphic novel version of Entertaining an Elephant that
comes with a Common Core Teacher’s Guide and can be bought in class sets at www.entertaininganelephant.com.
25
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Chris Loker
Picture Books Across the Ages
trong narratives, unforgettable characters, illustrations that stir the
imagination, and insights that engage the mind and heart—these are the
forces that drive children’s picture books.
I remember the first time this power became apparent to me, at least in
simple terms. I was a small girl, and I had picked out a
book from our much-used family book basket, handing
it to my mother who read to me daily. We snuggled up
together on our couch, cross-legged on my father’s old
college letterman blanket, and my mother read these
wonderful words aloud as I savored the pictures in the
book she held:
We looked!/Then we saw him step in on the mat.
We looked! And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!
That picture book, Dr. Seuss’ immortal The Cat in the Hat, lived with me daily
during my early childhood—at one point I had heard it so many times I could
recite it from memory. It followed me through primary and secondary school,
and then off to college where I read it to Kindergartners as part of my English
Literature major. Later, it followed me to business school, where it brought
me respite between economics and finance exams. And then it accompanied
me throughout my career in Human Resources as the memento I would give
colleagues, and later my staff, when there were heartfelt events to celebrate.
I never guessed that book would stay with me as long as it has. After a 25year career in the corporate world, and the untimely death of my first husband,
this picture book helped carry me over the bridge into a new career as a rare
book dealer, specializing in antique children’s books. And that’s where Dr.
Seuss’ iconic picture book finds me today—sitting at my desk in my bookshop
in San Francisco, its bright blue cover residing near me as I locate antiquarian
children’s books for collectors, and exercise my hand at writing my own
children’s picture books.
What I’ve learned from my love of reading, and from reading The Cat
in the Hat in particular, is that there is always a shimmer of pure joy in a fine
picture book. Picture books have this impact across the ages, regardless of
26
their century, starting in 1658 with the short illustrated encyclopedia Orbis
Sensualium Pictus, one of the earliest efforts to integrate pictures and words for
young readers. Even though the picture book is primarily considered a 20th
century development, there are precursor books
that show how magic can happen through the
interdependence of illustration and text, such
What I’ve learned
as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful
from my love
Wizard of Oz, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and Just
So Stories.
of reading, and
The books that have changed my life are
from reading The
those picture books fully illustrated in glorious
color, the ones that “hinge . . . on the drama of
Cat in the Hat in
the turning of the page” as children’s picture
particular, is that
book authority Barbara Bader has written.
Think of the groundbreaking picture books of
there is always a
the first half of the 20th century that present
shimmer of pure
color-saturated, enticing worlds to explore: The
Velveteen Rabbit, Millions of Cats,The Story of
joy in a fine
Babar,The Story of Ferdinand, Madeline, Curious
picture book.
George, Make Way for Ducklings, Le Petit Prince,
Eloise, and perhaps the most colorful of all,
Goodnight Moon. And then think of the equally
glorious picture books of the second half of
the 20th century that celebrate color, texture,
and message: The Snowy Day, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Very Hungry
Caterpillar, to name just a few.
It’s a joyous world that picture books create, and a world that has
inspired me since I was small. You can imagine the joy in my heart when my
young son brought a book over to read, sitting with me in our big “reading
chair”—a book that he learned to recite from memory before he began
school. I’m sure you can guess what that book was: The Cat in the Hat.
b
•••••
Chris Loker is the proprietor of Children’s Book Gallery, an antiquarian children’s bookshop in San Francisco,
specializing in children’s books and original book art from 1750 to 1950. She is also the curator of “One Hundred
Books Famous in Children’s Literature,” an exhibition of landmark children’s books at the Grolier Club in New York
City. She has written the (colorful) picture books In Awhile, Crocodile; Sapphire Starfish; and Alastair Acorn. Loker is
married to an antiquarian bookseller, has one son, two cats, and not nearly enough picture books.
27
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Yaya Yuan
I Am a Reader
f I were asked to make a list of words to describe myself today, reader
would be right there at the top. But I have not always identified as
a reader. I was born in China, and if we did do read-alouds in Chinese
preschool, it did not leave much of an impression as I can’t remember a
single one. When I moved to the United States, I
struggled to communicate and only managed to
piece together what I wanted to say in a confusing
mix of Chinese and English. Speaking was difficult
for me and reading was even harder.
Then, when I was seven or eight, my father
read to me from The Boxcar Children by Gertrude
Chandler Warner. I consider this my first reading
memory. Finally fluent in my new language, I fell
in love with the story of the four mystery-solving brothers and sisters,
and I rejoiced with them when they found their grandfather and a place
to call home.
From then on, I was unstoppable. I read everything from The Babysitter’s Club by Ann M. Martin to Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls
Wilder. And if I loved a story, I read it again. I read before I went to bed
and first thing when I woke up. Series were my favorites because I could
spend just a little more time with the places I loved and the people I
considered to be my friends.
In my work, I find there are many children who do not think of
themselves as readers. Usually, they live in slums (or worse) and do not
have the resources to explore what it means to be a reader. Sometimes
they have been told that they are bad readers, and so, they write themselves
off at an early age and give up on reading entirely.
But, gather any of these children together, read a book to them,
and just like that, a lifelong love of reading is sparked, new worlds are
discovered, and new friends are made.
In the Philippines, I was part of a LitWorld team that worked with
a group of teenagers who seemed far older than their 16 years, many of
them already acting as parents for their younger siblings. As mature and
grown-up as they had to be, when I read aloud Bill and Pete by Tomie
28
dePaola, they shrieked and guffawed when the crocodile-hunting Bad Guy
runs for his life, naked, down the banks of the Nile.
In India, I was trying to wrangle a raucous group of six-year-old
boys, doing everything I could think of to get all 20 of them to sit down
quietly at the same time, when I decided to read them Where the Wild
Things Are by Maurice Sendak.You have never
heard a quieter pack of wild things—until we
got to the wild rumpus, of course.
Reading makes
In Haiti, we ran a camp for 30 young girls,
ages six to eighteen, and despite the rather
possible joyful
large age range, the minute they entered the
communities full
LitWorld library where we hosted camp, each
and every one of them would grab a book and
of endless hope
huddle close together, reading in groups of two
and wonder.
or three, the room buzzing with the sounds of
shared stories.
In New York, I have spent the last three
years mentoring a group of girls who will soon
graduate high school and fulfill their dreams of
attending college. Each one of them has grown
into her own reading identity during our time together, deciding what she
likes, what she does not like, and debating plot twists and character traits with
her friends—practicing the habits of lifelong readers.
These moments stand out to me as testimonials and they bear witness
to the power of reading. Most of these children did not think of themselves
as readers. But by falling in love with a story, they, too, can say, “Yes, I am a
reader!” They will continue to take books into their hands and explore new
worlds, make new friends, and cultivate a brighter future. To me, reading
makes possible joyful communities full of endless hope and wonder.
b
•••••
Yaya Yuan is Advocacy and U.S. Program Director for the nonprofit organization LitWorld (www.litworld.org).
LitWorld empowers children to create lives of independence, hope, and joy through its LitClub and LitCamp
programs and its World Read Aloud Day campaign.
29
bR
Maria Walther
Reading: Experience It!
aised by a mother who believed in the power of real-life experiences,
we regularly hopped on the subway to travel to downtown Chicago
so that my sister and I could peer into the miniature Thorne Rooms at the
Art Institute. My parents, sister, and I participated in an exchange program
where we lived with a farm family in Iowa to gain
a firsthand look at life on a farm. In our basement,
we performed plays, hatched chicks, painted rocks,
made sand candles, and much, much more. You
might ask, “What does all of that have to do with
reading?” I would say, “Everything!” My mom
gave me the greatest gift—a wealth of background
knowledge on which to build.
As I “read” the illustrations in The Little House
by Virginia Lee Burton, I could understand the house’s sadness as she was
moved to the city. Why? I had seen the open countryside from the back of our
station wagon and walked through the cramped city streets. Later, when I read
Charlotte’s Web, I could empathize with Fern because I had held a baby pig in
my own arms. I could picture the Clock family from The Borrowers living in
the Thorne Rooms at the museum. With the help of my mom’s constant quest
for unique experiences, the books I read came alive.
Fortunately for me, my early school experiences continued to nurture
my love of the written word and from the time I was a first-grade student,
I set my sights on being a first-grade teacher. In 1986, fresh out of college, I
found myself in my own first-grade classroom surrounded by 24 enthusiastic
learners. I wanted to recreate for them the magic that I experienced when
I read a book. And while I knew I couldn’t take all of my students to live
on a farm, I could tell them stories from my own childhood as I read them
Charlotte’s Web.
I started on that first day of teaching sharing my passion for books and
the joyful bond that is formed during read-aloud experiences, and I haven’t
stopped since. Nowadays, my students and I read aloud about 800 books a
year! I carve out time each day to read at least four books, balancing fiction
and nonfiction, that build my students’ background knowledge about topics
30
of interest, various genres, favorite authors, and
their world.
The experiences I shared with my family
shaped who I am as a reader and as an
educator. I encourage the parents of my first
graders to do the same for their children. They
know that each Monday, my students and I
will sit in a circle and have “weekend share,” a
time for the first graders to show their friends
the cool rock they found at the park or the
map they brought home from the zoo. It is
my hope that the read-aloud experiences I
share with my first graders will help shape the
kind of people they will become. After nearly
three decades of gathering first graders around
me to read a story, I believe that a wealth of
experiences plus a love of reading are the keys
to a happy life.
•••••
After nearly three
decades of gathering
first graders around
me to read a story, I
believe that a wealth
of experiences plus a
love of reading are the
keys to a happy life.
b
Maria Walther, who earned a doctorate in elementary education from Northern Illinois University, has
taught first grade since 1986. She is a National Board Certified educator and currently teaches in Aurora,
Illinois. Along with teaching young learners, Walther inspires other professionals by sharing her knowledge
through customized professional development experiences and by serving as an adjunct professor in Judson
University’s Masters in Literacy program. The ideas she shares reflect her continued commitment to teaching,
researching, writing, and collaborating with her colleagues. Walther was honored as Illinois Reading Educator
of the Year and earned the ICARE for Reading Award for fostering the love of reading in children. With Carol
Fuhler, she co-authored Literature Is Back! and Teaching Struggling Readers With Poetry. She and Katherine
Phillips co-wrote Month-by-Month Trait-Based Writing Instruction and Month-by-Month Reading Instruction
for the Differentiated Classroom. She collaborated with Jan Richardson to create The Next Step Guided Reading
Assessment. Her latest publication is Transforming Literacy: Teaching in the Era of Higher Standards. Learn
more about her books at mariawalther.com and follow her on Twitter @mariapwalther.
31
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Alan Lawrence Sitomer
Books, I Love You!
hen I was a teen drowning in a sea of troubles, the waves of
adolescent life crashing over my head, I cried to the heavens,
“Someone, please throw me a life preserver!” A life preserver never came but
the universe did toss me a book. It was heavy but it hoisted me up.
When I was a first-year teacher in the inner
city—lost, brought to tears, brought to my knees,
brought to the breaking point—I cried to the
heavens, “Someone, please give me a tool!”
A tool never came but the universe did toss me a
book. It wasn’t made of steel but it empowered me to
forge ahead.
When I’ve had crises of faith, when I’ve had
ignorance to squash, when I’ve had a need to fill my
soul with joy and laughs and humor and hope, I would call to the heavens,
“Someone, please deliver to me the stuff for which my spirit aches.”
And each time the offering was the same: the universe tossed me a
book. The books came in many shapes. They came in many sizes. They
came with different jackets, perspectives,
and voices, yet they came and they came
and they came.
And they still keep comin’.
When it comes
Our universe is filled with a medicine
time for a true
that cannot be found in bottles, hypodermic
needles, or pills. Indeed, the remedy for
banquet, a feast for
many of life’s maladies can be found
my mind and spirit,
in books.
Our universe is filled with magic, the
there is no other
stuff of dragons and wands and sorcerers.
nourishment quite
Indeed, the secret to all that cannot be
readily seen can be readily experienced
like a book.
in books.
Sometimes, I dine on movies. Other
times, I’ll nibble at TV. Indubitably, I’ll
gobble down the Internet. But when it
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comes time for a true banquet, a feast for my mind and spirit, there is no
other nourishment quite like a book.
The only real disappointment I’ve ever had with books is that there
aren’t enough years on this planet for me to read all the ones I’d like to. Yet
from my “glass is half full” perspective, this means books will be with me to
my dying day.
And how many things in life can we really say that about? Books, I
love you!
•••••
Alan Lawrence Sitomer is a California Teacher of the Year award winner and the founder of the Writer’s Success
Academy. In addition to having been an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the
Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Sitomer is a nationally renowned keynote speaker
who specializes in engaging underperforming students. To date, he has authored 16 books ranging from hardhitting YA novels like Homeboyz, The Hoopster, and Hip-Hop High School to humorous children’s picture books
such as Daddies Do It Different and Daddy and the Zigzagging Bedtime Story. Additionally, he is the author
of two teacher methodology books and a classroom curriculum series for secondary English Language Arts
instruction called the Alan Sitomer BookJam.
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Franki Sibberson
Knowing Yourself as a Reader
am working with our fourth and fifth graders about really knowing
themselves as readers. I gave them a basic reading interview to help
them begin to look at their reading lives. Then I asked them to turn it over
to write 100 things about themselves as readers. I tried to do the same.
None of us got to 100, but we might by the end of
the year if we keep noticing and adding. Here is my
list so far:
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
34
1. I read almost every Nancy Drew book when
I was in sixth grade. My grandmother had the
collection in her attic.
2. I loved the Betsy books by Carolyn Hayward
when I was in elementary school.
3. Realistic fiction is my favorite genre.
No one is allowed to talk to me or bother me during the last ten pages of
a book. Endings are key for me.
I have to love the main character in a book to enjoy the book.
I occasionally enjoy science fiction and fantasy.
When I was younger, I loved the Bookmobile that parked right down the
street from our home every two weeks.
Walk Two Moons is one of my favorite books of all time.
I have a shelf of books that I haven’t yet read. I like to have back-ups in
case of a snowstorm or for some other reason that would give time to read.
I often skip parts in books when scenery or nature is described.
I am not so good at listening to books on tape. I get distracted. I like to
see the print.
I almost never like the movie better than the book.
I never read a book after I’ve seen the movie.
I like to read books that are brand new—hot off the press!
I don’t get excited about having authors autograph my books.
I don’t really like to share my favorite books. I want my friends to read
them, but I really like to keep favorites after I am finished with them.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
I like to alternate between long and short books.
I like to read children’s fiction on airplane trips.
I can’t read in the car. I get carsick.
I rely on blogs and other reviews to choose children’s books.
I have many favorite authors.
I love to hear authors speak and share
their work.
No one is allowed
I love Young Adult books but never have
to talk to me
time (or give myself time) to read them.
or bother me
Many graphic novels are hard for me to
read and understand.
during the last ten
My mother read me The Secret Garden and
pages of a book.
A Little Princess when I was little; they are
Endings are key
still two of my favorite books.
Most of my nonfiction reading is
for me.
connected to my work.
I have very little patience for reading howto books or directions.
I love, love, love to hang out in any
bookstore.
I buy too many books.
I love to visit new bookstores when I travel.
I am convinced that Cover to Cover in Columbus, Ohio, is the best
children’s bookstore in the country.
b
This is a really fun thing to do—I know as the year progresses, I will notice
more aspects about myself as a reader and I will add them to my list. Who
knows if I will get to 100. It is just an entertaining and informative way to
think about my reading life—what works for me as a reader and what doesn’t.
If you try this, let me know how it goes. When I hear other people’s lists, they
remind me of things I hadn’t thought about myself.
•••••
Franki Sibberson, K–5 school librarian, now teaches third grade. She is the author of Beyond Leveled Books,
Still Learning to Read, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop, and The Joy of Planning. She is
also a regular contributor to Choice Literacy. You can reach her on Twitter @frankisibberson or through her
blog, A Year of Reading (readingyear.blogspot.com).
35
bM
Linda Alston
Love and Literacy
ama drove off into the balmy summer night with Lil’ Alice and me in
the back seat, heads, shoulders, and thighs stuck together like old family
photos, reading Soul Confessions. It was a two-hour drive back to Natchitoches
from Shreveport. Lil’ Alice and I waited patiently between highway lights. In
the brief time the light shone on the printed page, we
read frantically of love, passion, romance, and broken
hearts only to have the page fade to black again at the
juiciest passages.
My parents were members of many different
religious faiths through the years. The common
thread that ran through them all was a Puritan view
of sexuality. The silence of my parents about sex
launched me into a kind of literacy cycle where my
number one genre was adolescence.
I subscribed to Teen magazine. I read about other teenagers and the trials
and tribulations they were having with their parents, teachers, boyfriends, and
younger siblings.
The desire, the need to read had taken on a practical purpose. Reading was
opening up a world of information that I desperately wanted even while all
the adults around me were determined to keep it from me.
The Farmer’s Almanac said that I was born under the sign of Cancer. I
liked rich foods, home, art, and would suffer from gastritis. But the important
morsel was that I was compatible with boys born under the sign of Pisces.
Pop Monroe was a Pisces.
The era was the ’60s and it was a great time to be in love with Pop. The
lyrics of the popular songs during that time are what sparked my interest in
reading poetry. This was the era of the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the
Miracles, and the Four Tops. I listened to words like:
s pretty as you are
A
You know you could have been a flower . . .
—The Temptations
This music inspired me to write love poetry of my own to Pop
Monroe. During this time, I started reading all kinds of poetry. I read
36
Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Edna St.Vincent
Millay, and, of course, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Pop was always very
proud of my writings. He would show my poems to all his friends and they
were always impressed.
This literacy cycle, my quest for adolescent understanding, continued
through high school. Ninth grade I remember as the year of D. H. Lawrence’s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Until this day I don’t know where the illicit book came
from, I never found out who brought it to school. It circulated around to all
my classmates under a brown paper grocery bag cover.
I was still reading to try and understand these tinglings and new sensations
I was feeling that I called love.
During this time, we attended a fundamentalist Pentecostal church. At
a revival one summer night, I took one look at Joe Green and Pop Monroe
was history. Joe’s grandmother was the Church Mother. This was the highest
office a woman could hold in our church—it was the female equivalent to
the pastor. I taught Sunday school to a group
of young children. I was probably the most
well-read teenaged Sunday school teacher in
Today, reading is
Louisiana. Why? Because I had to impress Joe
Green. After all, I was in love with him.
an exquisite joy in
At the end of Sunday school, all the
my life . . . a sweet,
groups would review their lessons for the
entire church. The pastor, Elder Feltus, always
rich indulgence that
commented on how well my group did in the
feeds me at a deep,
review. I would smile and glance over at Joe
and his grandmother, Mother Norman, for
soul-ular level.
their approval. And it was a good thing they
approved. Little did they know that I had read
all week to prepare for that Sunday’s lesson.
We were encouraged to read the Bible
every day. I enjoyed reading the Psalms of
David in the Old Testament. I liked the sound and flow of the words.
There was a time during Elder Feltus’ sermon when he would request
that someone from the audience stand up and read a scripture aloud to
support what he was preaching. He would say, “Someone get me the
second chapter of Acts.” Then he would continue to preach, giving the
member time to find the passage. This practice helped me read with
speed and learn the organizational layout of the Bible so I could find the
scripture first. When I found it, I would stand up quickly. This let everyone
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37
else know that I would be the reader. It was competitive. Then Elder Feltus
would say, “Okay, read, girl!” I always felt good going home from church
when I had read a scripture for Elder Feltus.
Today, reading is an exquisite joy in my life . . . a sweet, rich indulgence
that feeds me at a deep, soul-ular level. As a Master Life Coach, I still read
religious and spiritual books to continue my own personal evolution and
to empower others. And I’m head over heels in love—with Edward! He
sings old skool Temptations songs with a tribute group so the music will
not die. He writes poetry and songs about how much he loves me. One
of our favorite pastimes is reading and discussing books together while
snuggled up on the sofa and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Edward is a
Taurus, not a Pisces. But I haven’t laid eyes on a Farmer’s Almanac since I
left Louisiana many years ago.
As an avid reader, I know how to pick through books and choose
passages that I feel embrace my truth. Somewhere, in all those forbidden
texts, a protagonist must have told me to never give up on true love . . .
maybe it was Lady Chatterley!
•••••
Linda Alston, a peer teacher evaluator for Denver Public Schools, is also a master teacher of young children.
She has won numerous awards, including the Milken National Educator Award, the Walt Disney American
Teacher Award, and the first $100,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award, focusing on outstanding work by
K–12 public-school educators in low-income communities. Alston has traveled to Sierra Leone as a Fulbright
Scholar, organized six inner-city Montessori Child Development Centers, and is an educational consultant,
motivational speaker, and Master Life Coach. She is the author of the bestselling Why We Teach: Learning,
Laughter, Love, and the Power to Transform Lives.
38
b
b
Transformation
Reading energizes my heart with a dream
for a better life.
~Jimmy Santiago Baca
39
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Charles M. Blow
Reading Books Is Fundamental
he first thing I can remember buying for myself, aside from candy, of
course, was not a toy. It was a book. It was a religious picture book about
Job from the Bible, bought at Kmart.
It was on one of the rare occasions when my mother had enough money to
give my brothers and me each a few dollars so that we
could buy whatever we wanted.
We all made a beeline for the toy aisle, but that path
led through the section of greeting cards and books. As I
raced past the children’s books, they stopped me. Books to
me were things most special. Magical. Ideas eternalized.
Books were the things my brothers brought home
from school before I was old enough to attend, the
things that engrossed them late into the night as they
did their homework. They were the things my mother
brought home from her evening classes, which she attended after work, to earn
her degree and teaching certificate.
Books, to me, were powerful and transformational.
So there, in the greeting card section of the store, I flipped through children’s
books until I found the one that I wanted, the one about Job. I thought the book
fascinating in part because it was a tale of hardship, to which I could closely
relate, and in part because it contained the first drawing I’d even seen of God,
who in those pages was a white man with a white beard and a long robe that
looked like one of my mother’s nightgowns. I picked up the book, held it close
to my chest, and walked proudly to the checkout. I never made it to the toy aisle.
That was the beginning of a lifelong journey in which books would shape
and change me, making me who I was to become.
We couldn’t afford many books. We had a small collection. They were kept
on a homemade, rough-hewn bookcase about three feet tall with three shelves.
One shelf held the encyclopedia, a gift from our uncle, books that provided my
brothers and me a chance to see the world without leaving home.
The other shelves held a hodgepodge of books, most of which were
giveaways my mother picked when school librarians thinned their collections
at the end of the year. I read what we had and cherished the days that our class
at school was allowed to go to the library—a space I approached the way most
people approach religious buildings—and the days when the bookmobile came
to our school from the regional library. It is no exaggeration to say that those
books saved me: from a life of poverty, stress, depression, and isolation.
40
James Baldwin, one of the authors who most spoke to my spirit, once put
it this way: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the
history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the
things that tormented me the most were the very things that connected me with
all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
That is the inimitable power of literature, to give context and meaning to
the trials and triumphs of living. That is why it was particularly distressing that
The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissmann recently pointed out that according to The Pew
Research Center, “nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a single
book in the past year. As in, they hadn’t cracked
a paperback, fired up a Kindle, or even hit play
on an audiobook while in the car. The number of
That was the beginning
non-book-readers has nearly tripled since 1978.”
of a lifelong journey
The details of the Pew report are quite
interesting and somewhat counterintuitive.
in which books would
Among American adults, women were more
shape and change me,
likely to have read at least one book in the last
12 months than men. Blacks were more likely
making me who I was
to have read a book than whites or Hispanics.
to become.
People aged 18–29 were more likely to have read
a book than those in any other age group. And
there was little difference in readership among
urban, suburban, and rural populations.
I understand that we are now inundated
with information, and people’s reading habits have become fragmented to some
degree by bite-size nuggets of text messages and social media, and that takes up
much of the time that could otherwise be devoted to long-form reading. I get
it. And I don’t take a troglodytic view of social media. I participate and enjoy it.
But reading texts is not the same as reading a text.
There is no intellectual equivalent to allowing oneself the time and space to
get lost in another person’s mind, because in so doing we find ourselves.
Take it from me, the little boy walking to the Kmart checkout with the
picture book pressed to his chest.
b
•••••
Charles M. Blow is the New York Times’ visual Op-Ed columnist. Blow joined the New York Times in 1994 as a graphics
editor and quickly became the paper’s graphics director, a position he held for nine years. He graduated magna cum
laude from Grambling State University in Louisiana where he received a B.A. in mass communications. He lives in
Brooklyn with his three children.
From The New York Times, January 23 © 2014 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission
and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or
retransmission of this Content without written permission is prohibited.
41
bD
Sonia Manzano
Turn the Page and Know Yourself
on’t turn the page when you get to the end of the passage,”the teacher
warned. “We all have to read from the same page at the same time.”
I read, “Go, Spot, go,” in my Dick and Jane book and stopped to wait for
the rest of the class to catch up.
So was reading in the South Bronx, 1956.
Until I found myself on the Third Avenue
elevated train with my older sister. Curious about
what the ads above our heads said, I asked her, and
she, sick of having to babysit me, rolled her eyes
answering, “Why don’t you just try reading it?” I
thought she had lost her mind. That I should try to
put letters together, to figure out words, without a
teacher, had never occurred to me. But I tried anyway,
and before we reached our station I read, “More doctors smoke Camels than
any other cigarette,” “Meet Miss Subways,” “I dreamed I was wanted in my
Maidenform bra,” and all sorts of other confusing misinformation people
were getting in the mid-fifties.
But my mind was in a whirl—who knew that combinations of letters
made words and that reading was not confined to my Dick and Jane reader
at school? Walking the rest of the way home in a stupor, I wondered how
long this reading business had been going on, for I hadn’t perceived what
we did at school as reading—I experienced it as exercises in memorization.
Suddenly I became irritated that I hadn’t been allowed to turn the page.
From then on, I metaphorically “turned the page” every chance I
got. Nothing escaped me. My stressed-out parents didn’t see the value of
reading when you could be doing something useful like washing the dishes
or mopping the floor, so books were not available in our home. But no
matter—I found the print on cereal boxes, jars of Bosco, and toothpaste
tubes fascinating. Not only that, I whiled away the time finding letter shapes
in the cracks of our ceiling and in the formation of clouds.
I was even presumptuous enough to think that all the Bar and Grill
signs I spied from my father’s ’57 Chevy as he sped up Third Avenue were
incorrect, because based on the nightclub scenes I watched on television, I
was sure the signs meant to say Bar and Girls—tsk, tsk.
42
Eventually, I was able to get my hands on romance magazines and comic
books. On weekly visits to the school library, where we could look at but
not take out books, I managed to read whole books by remembering where
I had left off so I could return to them.
Fast-forward to college days in 1969 when I happened upon Sesame Street.
There, on a television in the student union of Carnegie-Mellon University, I
saw this remarkable show that authorized the recognition of letters and words
everywhere. Films that illustrated that a manhole cover was an o shape, that
the letter m looked very much like mountains, that a broken-down muffler
sounded like an r, and that, with careful viewing, one might find a t shape in a
park bench. Was that so very different from my experiences with letters on the
train, the cracks in my ceiling, and the clouds?
A few years later, because of perseverance, timing, and good luck, I got
cast as Maria and found myself in the midst of this innovative program.
Once I saw the inner workings of the show, I vowed to play a greater part
in it. The way to do that was to metaphorically turn a page on my career
and become a writer as well as a performer.
I used my experiences with letters and reading as a little girl to get
started, then let my love for the show’s zany characters carry me the
rest of the way. The possibilities were endless:
Cookie Monster finds all the items that begin
with the letter c on the menu in Hooper’s
Who knew that
store but then can’t resist eating the menu.
combinations of
Big Bird gets bonked on the head and forgets
the alphabet, giving me the opportunity to
letters made words
teach it again and again; the Tooth Fairy needs
and that reading
help reading the names on his list of toothless
children he plans to visit.
was not confined to
And then I did the same thing in Spanish—
my Dick and Jane
writing a song so everyone would know that
“Hola” meant “Hello.” I saw myself in every
reader at school?
single kid in our vast audience and was happy
to provide them with the happy news. Find
letters and words everywhere and read them!
Writing for television was just the
beginning, because there were more pages
to turn. Eventually, adult literature authors who wrote humorously
about trying childhoods intrigued me. I had both requisites—a trying
childhood and a sense of humor. Could I share those stories with
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children? Absolutely—and not only was I able to share, I personally took
great pleasure in giving myself a more sensible childhood.
But were there more pages to turn? Yes—when I got the opportunity
to write for an older audience. Now the challenge was to tell a story
without benefit of illustrations or Muppets. Could I do that? There was
no way of knowing but to try, so I did, and managed to carve a fictitious
story out of a historical event that was close to my heart.
And then it was time to look within and chart how it was that I went
from recognizing words on a subway train to writing books. That gave
birth to a memoir that has allowed me to put painful experiences where
they cannot hurt me anymore and where those experiences belong—in
the past.
So, if asked to describe what reading has done for me, I’d say I’ve
learned to keep turning pages. I have done that, and, as a great poet said,
“it has made all the difference.”
•••••
Sonia Manzano has affected the lives of millions since the early 1970s as the actress who defined the role of Maria
on the acclaimed television series Sesame Street. Manzano was twice nominated for an Emmy Award as best
performer in a children series and has won 15 Emmy Awards for her television writing. She is also the author of
the picture books No Dogs Allowed and A Box Full of Kittens published by Simon and Schuster. Manzano’s first YA
novel, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, published by Scholastic, was a Pura Belpré honor book, winner of the
CLASP Américas Book Award, and acclaimed by Kirkus as a “stunning debut.” Manzano’s Christmas picture book
with Simon and Schuster and a memoir with Scholastic will both be published in 2015. Manzano enjoys traveling
the country on the lecture circuit. She lives in New York City with her husband Richard. Visit her website at
www.TheRevolutionOfEvelynSerrano.com.
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Shirley Brice Heath
Gifted Seeds
hroughout my early childhood, I never knew books. I lived with my
grandmother until I had to go live with foster parents. My grandmother
had only a few years of schooling, but she learned how to “fake” reading. She
would take me on her lap and “read” books of the Old Testament that had
what she thought of as the most adventurous stories:
those of Job, Jonah, Daniel, and the like. My foster
family had books but no time to read, for the farm and
household chores had to be done. I learned to work
hard and fast to save time for exploring the books of
the household.
As the years rolled by, my love of literature remained
with me, but I never forgot that reading children’s books
did not find a way into many households, including my
own. Stories told, sung, and re-lived in the imagination during chores, boring
moments of classes, and on long car rides drew me into research on language,
culture, and literacy. I never forgot how growing up poor, isolated, or disadvantaged affects access to reading and writing. Of special interest to me was the
matter of how even small seeds of reading at some point in early life can sprout
later in life and will often have the staying power of the toughest of plants.
When I had my own two children, a boy and a girl, I immersed them in
children’s books, reading, and storytelling. We worked together in the garden, and
doing household chores and community work, but we always had a story going
and books in nearby knapsacks. We did so because of the pleasure, the joy, and
the fun of reading. Only when my daughter, at age 18, suffered a serious head
injury in an accident did I learn that stories and reading meant much more than
I had thought possible.
In the first eight years of her recovery, she did learn again to walk, sit,
talk, and, yes, to read and write. She defied what medical caregivers thought
possible. My daughter’s brain injuries had not taken away the intense will and
determination that had led her, before the accident, to become a national
champion swimmer as well as a national scholar in mathematics and science. As
the years have passed, however, the injuries to her brain increasingly take their
toll on her abilities. As her brain has atrophied and her memory and tolerance
for social interactions that involve conversation have declined, she has turned
45
once again to childhood reading habits. Though she has no memory of her life
before the accident, somewhere deep inside her very being, the seed of reading
lives and has brought forth sprouts that will not go down easily.
My daughter has become a well-known figure in her community. Never
having been able to drive, she walks everywhere—through rain, snow, sleet,
or sunshine. On her back at all times is a knapsack full of books—those she
has bought and those she has checked out from the library. She moves from
schools to eldercare facilities to homeless shelters. She reads and reads and
reads, for the words from the pages replace those she has trouble producing
and comprehending in lively multi-party conversations.
Children on the playground see her coming and know that on rainy
days, or when they feel ostracized by others, her knapsack of books will
be open to them. They go through her selection and read for themselves
or they ask her to read aloud. When she writes about what she sees in the
children, she shows her surprise that somehow the power of stories stretches
far. She writes:
I walked into a second-grade portable today and one of the girls was in tears.
None of her friends seemed to know what was wrong. I was armed with a
big book of fairy tales. So I asked the mournful child if she would help me
pick out a story to read to some of the kids. And so I read Sleeping Beauty.
Amazingly enough, there were no more tears. Ah, to be seven again, when all
the world’s problems could be solved with just a fairy tale.
Yesterday as I was helping supervise Kindergarten recess, some of the kids
asked me to read to them. I started reading to just a few, but when I looked
up there were 20 kids seated in front of me, listening. I’ve been reading to kids
at recess for several years now and I am still astonished at the number of kids
who want to spend part or all of their recess listening to me read to them.
Today I read to listeners from age five to 90 (Kindergartners at a local
elementary school all the way up to residents at a local group home for the
elderly).The fifth graders prefer to raid my bag for books to read instead
of being read to. I do not mind. I consider it the highest compliment to be
considered a portable library.
When I was reading to kids at the middle school, an adult asked me
what my expectations were. I responded by telling him what a fifth grader
told me—as a bus patrol boy, he had started reading to the Kindergartners
he is responsible for while they wait for their bus. He has become their
favorite patrol boy. He told me that now he understands why I love to
read to kids so much.
46
I am supposed to be the literacy expert in the family. Yet over the years,
as I have watched my daughter’s ways of adapting to life with her disabilities,
I marvel again and again at the staying power of books. She has become the
Johnny Appleseed of reading in her neighborhood, affecting the lives of many
individuals for whom others cannot take the time or may think reading unlikely
to be desired or appreciated.
My daughter has taught me that each of us embodies innumerable aspects of
human potential. She certainly does not experience today the literate life either
she or I imagined for her before her accident. But now her world revolves
around reading to others the books she knew so well as a child and those she
relishes getting to know today. I know of no one more informed than she about
which books children most enjoy or the stories
that will hold enraptured a group of elderly
residents diagnosed with severe dementia.
I marvel again and
With her gift of time spent reading, she can
bring young and old into memory, affect, and
again at the staying
engagement with both the future and the past. It
power of books.
is wise for all of us to remember that reading is
a seed that may lie dormant but yet holds on for
dear life and may someday give forth beautiful
lasting plants that keep growing and growing for
ourselves and others.
•••••
b
Shirley Brice Heath has a Ph.D. from Columbia University where she studied linguistics and anthropology. She has
done groundbreaking research on the impact of community organizations and voluntary learning settings that
draw young people from under-resourced communities into learning. She is best-known for her long-term studies
of families (begun in the 1980s with her book, Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and
Classrooms and followed up 30 years later with Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community
Life). Her work has taken her into township theaters and reading centers in South Africa, economically devastated
towns in Great Britain, communities in Mexico, and, most recently, museums and other major cultural centers. She
has influenced numerous museums in modern economies to shift their emphasis on learning for young people
from one-time visits through school field trips to open enrollment for old and young in ongoing laboratories,
studios, and curating sessions. She has lectured around the world and served on the faculties of the University of
Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Brown University.
47
bM
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Reading Energizes My Heart
y first experience with reading was at the rural school where my
Grandpa was the janitor. While he dust-mopped hallways and
emptied trashcans, I roamed classrooms, spinning the Atlas globes, touching
pencils on students’ desks, and sounding out the large alphabet cards that ran
above the blackboard from wall to wall. The wadded
paper in the trashcan smelled like dry prairie rose; the
wooden floors smelled like tree bark. And I felt like a
bear cub waking up to his first magnificent spring.
With the same joy I felt while picking wild
raspberries, I traced the letters on frosty panes; in
the tortilla flour on the cutting board; with my spit
beading on the hot woodstove top; when I peed
outside in the dirt. “Don’t do that!” Grandma cried,
“Stop writing letters everywhere!”
I saw myself as an alchemist, with chalice in hand, gathering magic in my
play, using sounds to conjure spells and blessings, to chase evil away, and to
invoke forest fairies.
Taken from Grandma’s to St. Anthony’s Orphanage, the nuns made us
memorize religious hymns and I competed against my friends to sing the
loudest so I could hear my voice filled with feeling (if the Lord heard me,
I’m sure He covered His ears). Though I could barely read, I enjoyed the
Dick and Jane illustrations in class and memorized catechism prayers.
Fifteen years passed before another
book was in my hands, one I stole in the
county jail from the receptionist. Reading
Reading energizes
Wordsworth changed my life. My sister
brought me a dictionary and at 18, I learned
my heart with a
grammar. From county jail to prison for
dream for a
possession of drugs—here, reading triggers
images in my mind; a catalyst that pops
better life.
them up with such exciting force it makes
me catch my breath—images with voices
and scents and features recharge and
energize my heart with a dream for a better
b
48
life, moving in a metaphorical rainbow that metabolized their life-force
through my DNA.
Owning a book was a grievous crime in my outlaw world. A gang, in
league with the prison administration, warned my friend Charles Green
not to go to the library. He ignored their warning and, as he entered the
library door, they stabbed him to death. This brutal act made me read even
more to defy those who would stop us from reading.
And now, some five decades later, I read every day; my rooms are filled
with books, my children read every night, as does my wife. I can see my
Grandma. I whisper to her, “Grandmother, I can write now; I even wrote
you some poems.” She leans over my shoulder to observe, and smiles.” •••••
As an abandoned child and a runaway, Jimmy Santiago Baca’s childhood was spent on the margins of society.
In early adulthood he reverted again and again to a life of crime, eventually being sentenced to five years in
a maximum-security prison. After years of hellish suffering in isolation, he emerged from prison a voracious
reader and a skilled, self-taught writer. He discovered a deep attachment to poetry that became his saving
grace. Now an accomplished and celebrated author, Baca is the recipient of many honors including the Pushcart
Prize, the American Book Award, and the Hispanic Heritage Award. For his memoir, A Place to Stand, he received
the prestigious International Prize. In 2006, Baca won the Cornelius P. Turner Award, a national award that
annually recognizes one GED graduate who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice,
health, public service, and social welfare. Devoting his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who
are overcoming hardship, Baca has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers,
libraries, and universities. In 2005, he created Cedar Tree, Inc., a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping
others improve their lives through education. Baca is the published author of multiple books and professional
resources for educators with co-author ReLeah Cossett Lent; additionally, he is featured in several films. See
www.jimmysantiagobaca.com.
49
bI
Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert
A to Anno: The Gift That Changed My Life
grew up in a Mennonite community. My dad was the first full-time
minister in our Mennonite group’s conference in Canada. He made all
of $150 a month—about what I now casually pay for yet another pair of
shoes from Zappos.
My parents worked hard to make ends meet,
with a huge garden to plant and harvest in the
short summers of the Canadian prairies, a coop
filled with chickens for eggs and fryers for Sunday
dinner, and a cow for milk and cream that my
mom skimmed and sold for a little extra cash. And
the list of chores goes on, including melting snow
in winter to fill the washtub on Mondays and the
bathtub on Saturday nights.
My Opa had read stories to my siblings and me in German but my
formal introduction to reading began as a first grader in a four-room
schoolhouse in the hinterlands of Saskatchewan. On the first day of first
grade, I was introduced to Dick and Jane and, simultaneously, to reading as
a potentially subversive activity. Miss Braun, the teacher of the first through
third graders, required that each child bring a rubber ring, the kind that was
used to seal canning jars, to school. We stretched the rubber ring over the
part of the Dick and Jane reader that we hadn’t yet covered in our lessons
with Miss Braun. We had to promise that we would not release the rubber
ring, either in the classroom or when we took our books home.
This prohibition was all I needed to race through the reader (of
course, I had to wait until the others caught up, but I was an early adopter
of repeated reading). What I encountered in the Dick and Jane readers
confused and perplexed me. These books were not just my introduction to
reading, but also to the world of die Engländer—the English—the label the
Mennonites gave to everyone outside the group.
I was intrigued to find out more about the world beyond, but there was
no library in our school or hamlet. Other than the adventures of Dick and
Jane, my reading consisted primarily of the Simpson Sears catalog (which
also served an important function in the privy), a book of Bible stories, and
another about missionary families.
50
But one day when I was almost eight, things changed. It was the day that
the first installment of the Encyclopedia Britannica arrived. I was absolutely
gobsmacked. In Volume 1 (A to Anno) alone, I could learn about abbeys,
aerial navigation, Africa, and angling—these were all of the topics with
pictures. My life was to change even more the next year. That’s when we
moved to Vancouver, where my father became the minister of a church
that served the many Mennonites who were
making the migration from farm to city. After
that, I would be immersed in the culture of die
Engländer, including their public and school
I was absolutely
libraries. But it was that encyclopedia that
gobsmacked. In
opened up the possibility of the world for me.
For years, my parents paid for that
Volume 1 (A to
encyclopedia—$2 a month. I have the
Anno) alone, I could
yearbooks for the span of years during which
learn about abbeys,
those payments were made: 1956 to 1963.
The yearbooks with the encyclopedia are on
aerial navigation,
a bookcase in a visible and central place in my
Africa, and angling.
home. A few years ago, my spouse arranged for
an artist to create a custom bookcase for it. As
valuable as the bookcase is, I don’t believe its
value will ever equal the $168 my parents paid
for that encyclopedia.
•••••
b
Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, Ph.D., is president and CEO of TextProject, a nonprofit that provides open-access
resources for teachers to help students who depend on schools to become highly literate. Hiebert has
worked as a literacy educator for 45 years—first, as a teacher’s aide and teacher of primary-level students
in California and, after getting her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, as a professor at the universities
of Kentucky, Colorado-Boulder, Michigan, and California-Berkeley. Hiebert’s research on effective literacy
practices has been published in many scholarly journals and she has also authored or edited 11 books.
Hiebert spends part of every day working on projects to support the reading opportunities of low-income
students. In addition, she loves her life as a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and neighbor. The birthday
parties Hiebert throws to mark each new decade of her life are legendary. Become part of her community
at textproject.org.
51
bS
F. Isabel Campoy
Liberation Through Reading
itting in the lap of a parent or grandparent, wrapped within their arms,
and sharing the wonders of imagination through a book was one privilege
I did not enjoy as a child. The rhythm of family life in postwar Spain focused
on the basic essentials. Adults had to wait in endless lines to buy milk, bread,
or potatoes to improvise a meal and the coal needed
to cook it. Children concentrated on being minimally
invasive while doing their multiple chores of daily life.
Our Civil War had ended seven years before I was born
and I was one year old when World War II ended. But
the 40–year grip that dictator Francisco Franco had on
the country lasted until 1975.
My privilege instead was the uniqueness of a family
that valued education and was able to supplant the void
of meaningful books in libraries and bookshops, as well as contradict in our
home the Nazi propaganda of our textbooks. Having a mother who knew
every traditional song, limerick, saying, and tale from our country’s folklore
enriched my childhood. Having a father who taught me not only to read, but
also to understand the silence between the lines, made me curious about the
hidden messages in books. As soon as I learned to read, my teachers chose me
to read out loud while my classmates did art or sewing. I had a good voice
and I couldn’t hold a thread and needle for more than two seconds, so it was a
perfect match and kept everyone busy.
Because censorship was imposed both by the government and the Catholic
Church until I was 29 years old, reading was an act of rebellion. Books were
smuggled through the border with France or hidden in luggage from trips
abroad. On those pages, I understood that history belongs to those who write it,
and that truth must be viewed through more than one perspective. Books gave
me that freedom.
As a professor of English, my father had many contacts with the outside
world. One day when I was six, he brought home a picture book. He had
glued his Spanish translation over the English text, and he said that it was a
wonderful book for all ages that we would all enjoy. The book was Goodnight
Moon. The author, Margaret Wise Brown, had died some days before in a
town not too far from the Spanish border. Father told us she had died dancing
the Can-Can, which I found truly fascinating. Ten years later, I was a 16-year-
52
old AFS exchange student in Trenton, Michigan, when I discovered in the
public library the other books Margaret Wise Brown had written. Books
didn’t travel into Spain, but I travelled outside in search of books.
Reading in two languages allowed me to fall in love with a different
symphony of sounds and rhythms, landscapes,
characters, and behaviors. When I began to
read in English, I noticed not only a different
Neither poverty
grammar order, but different life perspectives, too.
Reading also allowed me to know about
nor a thousand
scholarships that made it possible to leave the
misfortunes should
country and pursue a career abroad; to learn
about my identity and enjoy innocence way
deprive any child
past my years of innocence; and to compare and
of a book, because
contrast the world I lived in with other worlds
while traveling through the pages of Federico
books DO change
García Lorca, Walt Whitman, or Langston
lives. They did mine.
Hughes. I am who I am because in each book
I read I found the humor, the pain, knowledge,
and laughter of which the fabric of life is made.
There are no arms wrapped around many
of the children in our schools and no laps of
parents or grandparents to sit in while sharing
the wonders of imagination through a book, yet these children also deserve
that privilege. Neither poverty nor a thousand misfortunes should deprive any
child of a book, because books DO change lives. They did mine.
b
•••••
F. Isabel Campoy could be described in her own words as an adventurous, international, multilingual, multicultural,
mestiza. She obtained her degree in Philology from University Complutense of Madrid. For her post-graduate work,
she was a Ford Scholar at Reading University in England, and a Fulbright Scholar at UCLA. She is the author of over
150 titles in Spanish and English, including children’s books in the areas of poetry, theatre, fiction, biography, and art,
as well as books for educators that address Transformative Education, Second Language Acquisition, and Authentic
Writing. Her work aims at providing children keys to interpret the world in a fun, challenging, and affirmative way.
CABE (The California Association for Bilingual Education) has established an endowment in her name to provide
scholarships for future teachers. She has been recognized with the Laureate Award from the San Francisco Public
Library and the 2005 Reading the World Award from the University of San Francisco. Her books have been honored
with the ALA Notable Book Award and have been cited by Kirkus Best Books and as the Nick Jr. Best Book of the Year
as well as being six times a Junior Library Guild selection. Campoy is a contributing member of the North American
Academy of the Spanish Language and member of the American Academy of Poets. She also belongs to several
organizations for the advancement of multicultural awareness and world peace.
53
bI
Phyllis C. Hunter
Reading Grows High Cotton
grew up on the south side of Chicago. Not the Chicago of Good
Times and the Evans Family. No, not at all! I went to Catholic
School in a crisp uniform and walked home by way of my grandfather’s
grocery store. We owned everything on the corner and all the houses
across the street. Money wasn’t an issue, but
health was. My grandmother was bedridden,
dying of bladder cancer and the doctors had
done all they could. So my job at eight years old
was to come straight home from Holy Name
of Mary School and sit by my Mamoo’s bedside
and read to her.
In those weeks and months, I read everything:
the Bible, my textbooks, the pocket-size Daily Word
magazine, and hundreds of Hallmark get well cards. I became a fluent
reader at eight years old with phenomenal comprehension skills because
I had to be ready to answer Mamoo’s questions. She made me promise
to go to college and always be smart. And I’ve done, and still try to do
that. Being told I was smart by everyone because I was such a good reader
changed my life and made me believe that anything is possible—except
going against my mother’s hopes and dreams for me.
Several years later, when I was
planning my high school course
schedule, my mother reviewed my
choices: “No! No, you cannot take
As a family we
typing or a home economics class at the
discovered that—
Academy of Our Lady!” she declared.
thanks to reading—
“I’m not paying all that money for you
to become a cook or a seamstress.”
we grow our own
I pleaded that those two classes were
high cotton!
the only electives I was taking. I had
signed up for Geometry and Spanish
and all the others were college prep
classes. But she still said “No!” So I read
cookbooks like novels and McCall’s
b
54
Sewing Encyclopedia into the night. I taught myself to sew and cook
(gourmet!), hobbies I still enjoy today at age 67. Yes, reading has enriched
and emboldened and changed my life!
Being an educator, speech therapist, principal, and international
reading consultant, however, is not being in “high cotton,” as we
sometimes say in the south. High cotton was attending Parents’ Weekend
at Groton Prep School in Groton, Massachusetts, where many parents
arrived in their private planes. Reading made it possible for our only son
Drew to score in the 99th percentile of the PSAT and attend Groton
and, from there, enter Ivy League Dartmouth. As a black male, the odds
were against Drew, but from the age of four he has been, like me, an
avid reader and he beat the oddsmakers. In 2005, Drew graduated from
Georgetown Medical School. As a family we discovered that—thanks to
reading—we grow our own high cotton!
•••••
Phyllis C. Hunter, internationally renowned, award-winning educational consultant and author, is a
sought-after motivational speaker and reading advisor for many educational stakeholders. She is a veteran
educator, having worked as a district reading manager, principal, and speech and language therapist.
She is the author of It’s Not Complicated: What I Know for Sure About Helping Our Students of Color
Become Successful Readers. Hunter serves on the advisory board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education
which awards the nation’s largest yearly K–12 public education prize, and she is on the advisory board of
several national literacy organizations, including Scholastic’s Family and Community Engagement (FACE),
Consortium for Reading Excellence (CORE), the Neuhaus Education Center, and the National Center for Family
Literacy. In 2002, she was named the Marcus Garvey Educator of the Year by the National Alliance of Black
School Educators; in 2009, Scholastic Education presented Hunter with its inaugural Heroes Award for her
contributions to the field of children’s literacy.
55
bI
JoAnn Trejo
Imagining Possibilities
grew up in a family of migrant farm workers in California’s Central
Valley. My mother raised me and my four older siblings. Throughout
my childhood, I was surrounded by strong women; my grandmother,
mother, aunts, and older sister. Everyone in my family worked hard. When
my mom got home from a day’s work in the fields
or the cannery, she got right to work cooking
homemade beans, rice, and tortillas. Every night
she made sure there was a warm meal for us. By
the time we ate and cleaned up, it was time for bed.
In my home, there was neither time nor energy to
read. I did not grow up in a household with books.
In elementary school, I was mostly bored. I
usually finished my schoolwork by 10:00 am. By
fifth grade I was spending a lot of my time in the office with the principal,
Mrs. Astorga, helping her with various tasks and tutoring Kindergartners.
That year, Mrs. Astorga talked to my mom, encouraging her to send me
to the local Catholic School. My family qualified for a scholarship, and in
sixth grade I put on my uniform and entered San Joaquin Middle School.
It wasn’t long before I organized the other Mexican girls into a “society.”
We made membership cards and became card-carrying members of the
“Brown Sensations.” We mostly kept each other company and helped each
other feel comfortable; we did not spend time reading.
One day my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Cort, put a book on my desk.
It was a biography of actress Greta Garbo. I picked it up, went to the
convent, and began to read. By then I had established the pattern of staying
at school until my mom got home from work. Feeling safe in the silence
of the convent, the words I read captivated me and soon I was enthralled.
Through Greta Garbo’s story, I realized that there were other women who
had struggled, persevered, and transformed their lives. I recognized myself
in her: a leader and immigrant who did not find solace at school. It was the
first time I had read anything other than SRA cards and I couldn’t stop. I
devoured it in one sitting.
From then on, Mrs. Cort had a hard time keeping me supplied with
books. She dug up all the biographies of women that she could find. I
56
remember reading about the lives of Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn,
Helen Keller, and many other spirited, gutsy women. I began to realize
that the stories of their lives could help me
transform my life. These biographies are the
first books I remember reading. They were
These biographies
words given to me by someone who knew me
comprised stories
and cared about my future. They comprised
that ignited my
stories that ignited my imagination and hope.
They were the road maps that allowed me to
imagination and
see where I could go with my life.
hope. They were
It has been a long road. I am now a
tenured professor in the school of medicine
the road maps that
at the University of California, San Diego. As
allowed me to see
a scientist, most of my time is spent reading
where I could go
scientific literature. However, recently my
partner, someone who knows me and cares
with my life.
about my future, gave me My Beloved World,
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography. I sat
down and read it from cover to cover. Once
again, I am inspired and am envisioning new
possibilities for my life.
•••••
b
JoAnn Trejo, Ph.D., is a professor at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Trejo is Mexican-American and the
youngest of five children raised by a single mother in the central valley of California. She credits her success
to the influence of her mother, older sister, and teacher mentors. Dr. Trejo conducts research on cardiovascular
disease and breast cancer. She has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the
Komen Foundation, UC Tobacco-related Disease Research Program, and the American Heart Association (AHA)
including the prestigious AHA Established Investigator Award. Dr. Trejo is a leader in the scientific community.
She was elected to serve on the Council of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). She is a life member
of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), a member of the
ASCB Women in Cell Biology Committee, ASCB Minority Affairs Committee, and the Keystone Symposia Diversity
Advisory Committee. Dr. Trejo is currently the director of the San Diego Institutional Research and Academic
Career Development Award (IRACDA), a NIH-sponsored program for postdoctoral fellows that aims to develop a
diverse group of highly trained biomedical and behavioral scientists.
57
bI
Robert E. Probst
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
t wasn’t much of a store. A very narrow aisle, not even wide enough to
accommodate two people standing side-by-side, led to a counter at which
you could buy soft drinks, then back down the other side of the shelves
that divided the store to the cash register and the exit. It was a “sundries”
store, as I recall, not that I had the faintest idea at
the time what a sundry was (though I was fairly sure
that I didn’t need one), and I have no idea what my
mother and my aunt were looking for. We were on the
Boardwalk at Ocean City, Maryland, and I was eager
to get out to the beach, so it may have been something
like sunscreen, if sunscreen had been invented at the
time—this was about 1955 as I recall, long before
our national obsession with safety had led to such
developments as sunscreen, seat belts, and bicycle helmets. I wasn’t fascinated
with whatever the store had to offer and can remember almost nothing about
its selection of sundries.
Except for the wire-rack book stand right at the U-turn in the aisle.
My two guardians must have paused to find something, giving me time to
look over the colorful paperbacks arrayed there, covers facing out, in a display
two books wide and about six books high. It was a rack that rotated and it mostly
displayed the sort of books whose graphic covers my mother did not want me, at
age 12, looking at. But as I slowly spun the rack—searching, I’m sure, for some
work of great literature or weighty volume of scholarship and wisdom—I spotted,
in the bottom right corner of one of the panels, a cover with a photograph of a
man wearing some odd equipment. His eyes were hidden behind a mask, he had
a metal tube clutched in his teeth, corrugated rubber hoses ran from that tube to
tanks he was wearing on his back, and he was obviously underwater, exploring
what I would come to learn was a coral reef.
I picked it up, glanced through the photographs clustered in a section in the
middle of the book, grew fascinated at the idea of men swimming free, deep
under the surface of the sea, and asked my aunt to buy it for me. I suspect that
she thought the book would be far above my head but, relieved that I hadn’t
chosen one of the more lurid (and I have to admit, intriguing) covers, bought
it for me. It was Jacques Cousteau’s The Silent World, the story of his fascination
with the world beneath the waters and his invention of the Aqua-Lung, the first
self-contained-underwater-breathing-apparatus (SCUBA).
58
Details grow vague at this point. I’d like to
report that I read the book that afternoon sitting
If one book,
on the beach, but I doubt that’s true—there
was, after all, the ocean in all its mystery calling
discovered at age
me down to its depths. But I’m certain that I
12, could exert
started reading it that night, back in the motel
room. And then I read it again, almost every year,
such influence on
until other demands pushed it aside. I still have
me, then there was
that copy, or most of its more than 60-year-old
the grand potential
tattered pages, now held together with a rubber
band. But I hold on tightly to what’s left of it
that some other
because that one little volume has had such an
book, discovered by
impact on my life.
some other reader
As a result of reading that book, I’ve spent
as much of my life as possible 30-130 feet
at age 10, 20, or 90
underwater, and I’ve come to love the ocean
could transform that
and its creatures. I ended up studying French
in school, just in case Cousteau might need
reader’s life.
my help on board The Calypso. He never did
call. But this encounter, perhaps more than any
other, convinced me that reading mattered. If
one book, discovered at age 12, could exert
such influence on me, then there was the grand
potential that some other book, discovered by some other reader at age 10, 20,
or 90 could transform that reader’s life.
A book offers possibility. And a library of books offers a world of possibilities.
This is one of the things that makes teaching so worthwhile—as teachers, we can
help our students find the books that will open their worlds of possibility.
For me, it led to a lifelong fascination with the sea—though I occasionally
wonder what course my life might have taken if I had made it out of the store
with one of those other paperbacks with the more . . . colorful . . . covers.
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•••••
Robert E. Probst, professor emeritus of English Education at Georgia State University, has spent most of his career
working on the teaching of literature and reading. He is the author of Response and Analysis; co-editor of Adolescent
Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice; co-author, with Kylene Beers of Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading.
Probst has presented frequently at conventions, both national and international, and has served the National
Council of Teachers of English in various roles, including membership on the Commission on Reading, on the board
of directors of the Conference on English Leadership, and as column editor for Voices in the Middle. In 2004, he was
awarded the NCTE’s Exemplary Leadership Award, presented by the Conference on English Leadership.
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Kylene Beers
Lost and Found
t wasn’t until I was a teacher that I came to understand the power of
books. A third-year teacher to be exact. In the spring of that third year to
get specific.
That’s not to say that prior to that moment I didn’t love reading and
didn’t understand that a life spent in the company of
books would be enriched. I did. Of course I did. I
grew up reading—everything. As a child, I loved the
adventures of Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel,
of the man in a yellow hat and his oh-so-curious
monkey; I wanted to be like Madeline who saw
the fun in stepping out of those two straight lines. I
became a track star running with Babe Didrikson,
a nurse helping Florence Nightingale, a statesman
standing beside Patrick Henry, an inventor working alongside Ben Franklin. I
was an intrepid explorer with Tom Sawyer, a Swiss family named Robinson,
a doll named Hitty, and a girl in the Limberlost. I felt confusion and fear and
anger and sadness and ultimately hope all from one girl named Anne. I was
a Bobbsey twin, a Hardy boy, and a Nancy Drew wanna-be. I ran away to a
museum, hid on a ship, walked up a road slowly, and journeyed to the center
of the Earth. I sat halfway up a stair (because “there isn’t any other stair quite
like it”), tesseracted across the universe, and journeyed a yellow-brick road to
discover that there is no place like home.
Yes, I loved getting lost in a book. And so it was no great surprise that
I went on to become an English teacher. I walked into teaching eager to
encourage a love of reading in all my students. My students and I survived
my first couple of years, and then I hit that third year. That was the year that
a colleague in the middle school where I taught suggested that I was ready
to help chaperone the annual voluntary spring break trip for our seventh and
eighth graders to Washington, D.C. I had never been to our nation’s capital,
and I didn’t yet have my own children to be with during this break. Though
students who wanted to go paid a fee, the trip was free for the teachers who
agreed to give up their vacation and travel with students. I was in and began
talking to my seventh graders about this trip.
Though every veteran teacher had warned me about not having a favorite
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student, that wasn’t possible that third year. This was the year I taught Gary, a
small seventh grader with an impish smile, uncombed hair, wild freckles, and an
optimism that was contagious. We began to talk about this trip and one day he
happily announced that he’d get to go. He, too, had never visited D.C. On and
off over the next few months, we talked about what it would be like to visit
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, to walk through the Capitol, to go to the
Pentagon, to actually stand in the shadow of
the Lincoln Memorial. On Monday of the final
week to make the payment, Gary came into
my classroom at the end of the day. “I need to
Yes, getting lost in
talk to you about our trip to Washington,” I
a book is a magical
can still hear him say.
“Sure,” I said. “Do you need another
thing. But finding
payment form?”
your way because
“No,” he said, slowly. Then he took a deep
breath and continued, “I can’t go.” Before I
of a book is better.
could say anything, he explained, “My mom
says we don’t have enough money for one of
us kids in the family to get to take a trip like
this and the others not. So I can’t go.”
I sat at my desk, trying to figure out
how I could pay Gary’s way but not pay for all the others. I started to say
something—though I don’t know what—and again he stopped me short. “But
it’s ok. My mom says that we’ll go to the library and check out books about
all the places you will go while you are there. So, on the day you are at the
White House, we’ll read about the White House. And when you are at the
Smithsonian, we’ll read about that. We’ll read about everything that you will
see. And then Mom says when you get back you should come over for dinner
and we’ll both talk about our trips because Mom says that the only difference
is that you’ll take a trip on a plane and I’ll take a trip in my mind. So, will you
give me a copy of the itinerary?”
I would have given him anything.
Spring break came. I headed off to the airport and Gary headed to the
library. When I returned, sure enough, his mother invited me to dinner. The
night I visited we had one of my favorite meals: meat loaf, English peas with
carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, and lettuce leafs topped with peach slices
and a dollop of mayonnaise. (Those of you from the South recognize this
as Sunday dinner best.) Later, we moved to the living room where I took
out my photos and Gary opened up his books. We began talking about our
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respective trips and it was soon evident that Gary had had a better trip than
I—but that’s a different story. Eventually it was time for me to go.
I stood at the door and told his mother how much the evening had
meant to me. I told her that I thought the world would be a better place if
every kid had a mom just like her. I told her what a difference she had made,
not only in Gary’s life but in mine. This woman, weary from a job that paid
too little for hours that went on too long, smiled, turned away, and picked
up her purse that sat on a small table by the front door. She went through it
and took out her wallet. She opened that up and pulled out a small blue card.
She handed it to me. “See this?” she said.
I held it and nodded.
“This is our library card,” she told me. “There are many things I will
never be able to buy my children, but because we have a library card there
is nothing they can’t have. They can travel anywhere, learn anything, meet
anyone, and ultimately become whatever they dream to be because we have
this card that gives us access to a world of books. And it’s those books that
will help Gary find his place in the world.”
Yes, getting lost in a book is a magical thing. But finding your way
because of a book is better.
•••••
Kylene Beers is a former middle-school teacher turned teacher educator who spends her time focusing
on the needs of struggling readers. She is author of When Kids Can’t Read/What Teachers Can Do; the
co-author with Robert E. Probst of Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading; and co-editor with Linda
Rief and Robert E. Probst of Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. In 2008–2009, she served as
president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and in 2011, she received the NCTE Exemplary
Leader Award given by the Conference on English Leadership. She has served as a consultant to the National
Governor’s Association Education Committee, was the editor of the national literacy journal Voices from the
Middle, taught in the College of Education at the University of Houston, was senior reading researcher for the
Comer School Development Program at Yale University, and has most recently served as the senior reading
advisor to the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. You can follow Beers on
Twitter or on her blog at KyleneBeers.com.
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Peter H. Johnston
Reading Changes Me
indsay, an eighth grader in one of our research projects, made the
following observation after reading Hate List by Jennifer Brown:
That book is really good, and it changes my mind about how people
feel about things. And even, like, a little comment can change someone’s
life. And, like, the other day, I saw people on
Facebook picking on this one girl, saying nobody
liked her because she was ugly and had no friends.
And I kind of put a stop to it. I told them it was
wrong and that people commit suicide for it all
the time. So, it changed my way of seeing things.
Normally I wouldn’t have said anything to stop.
But now, if I see anything, I stop it.
Reading transforms us in many, many ways, and when we are transformed,
our relationships with others change, transforming them as well. This has been
my experience in research, and in life.
I lived with my grandparents when I was very young and my reading
began with them. Scottish immigrants to New Zealand, they read with
strong Scots accents, which I appropriated. I remember two favorite books
(since money was very tight, they might actually have been the only books—
except for the Robbie Burns collection). One was Gertrude Crampton’s
Scuffy the Tugboat, about a toy tugboat who longed for bigger things, the
pursuit of which led to being lost and alone, to overcoming challenges, and
to being found again and brought back into a loving family. The second
book, inappropriate by today’s standards, was Little Black Sambo by Helen
Bannerman. Over and over, as Little Black Sambo, I cleverly triumphed over
the terrifying tiger.
In elementary school, I recall my father reading us Rudyard Kipling’s The
Jungle Book. To this day I remember “the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo
River all set about with fever trees,” a memory refreshed by my reading
the book with my own children. A fourth-grade substitute teacher read us
Cargoes by John Masefield, savoring the mouth feel of “Quinquireme of
Nineveh from distant Ophir” and the “Stately Spanish galleon coming from
the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores.” She also
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regaled us with Banjo Patterson’s bush poetry. Her efforts doubtless explain
the occasional recitation parties we hold at our house.
My high school years, alas, were a reading wasteland. I failed to find the
requisite Shakespearean plays and poems and related classics more engaging
than my other life pursuits to which they bore no relevance. I lost the thread.
Fortunately, my love of science continued, right through college.
Then it was my first year teaching. A four-teacher country school miles
from anywhere in New Zealand, reading children’s books every day to an
appreciative audience, but I made no time for my own reading (and I didn’t
even have television). One cold wet winter day, I had nothing to do—except
read the only book on my shelf, The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles,
given to me by a friend for Christmas. When at last I put it down, I wrote a
letter of appreciation to my friend, who thought I might also like Siddhartha
by Herman Hesse. I did. Over the years many such books and the people who
put them in my path have proven transformative, each in their own way. Last
night it was John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.
When I returned to graduate school, my mentor extended my love of
science into critical reading of research on teaching and literacy. Theory,
evidence, and critical analysis: exhilarating!
Reading with my own children
subsequently
made wonderful memories,
Reading has
and many children’s authors (such as
changed who I’ve
William Steig, Margaret Mahy, and Russell
Hoban) put more playful language flavors,
become (over and
melodies, and textures on my tongue.
over), how I make
In Margaret Mahy’s The Man Whose
Mother Was a Pirate, the Little Man’s first
sense of others and
experience with the sea so overwhelmed
the world, and how
him that “the drift and the dream of it,
the weave and the wave of it, the fume
I live my life.
and the foam of it, never left him again.”
So it is with me and language. This joyful,
relational experience of reading with my
children performed an additional service. It
inoculated me against overzealous scientific
pronouncements about the process of teaching reading.
The outcome of this history has been a career spent researching literacy
in the lives of teachers and children, most recently the transformative power
of young adults’ deep engagement in reading (my own missing years). I
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wish my teachers had known, as we have learned, that when young adults
can choose among personally meaningful books, and are not bound by
controlling assignments, they become deeply engaged, prolific readers and
personally, relationally, and morally healthier human beings.
Reading has changed who I’ve become (over and over), how I make
sense of others and the world, and how I live my life. Above all, I met my
wife of 36 years in the library. I won her over by telling her stories that
made her laugh—stories and language that had roots in my reading life.
•••••
Peter H. Johnston, Ph.D., researches the consequences of teachers’ classroom talk and its effect on how
children learn and experience themselves and each other. Now professor emeritus at the University at
Albany, State University of New York, he has published over 80 articles and a dozen books (some in multiple
languages), the most recent being Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives. His election to the
Reading Hall of Fame established his Old Fart status beyond reasonable doubt—a fact, he notes, that is not lost
on his three grown children or his wonderful wife of 35 years. Most recently, the Literacy Research Association
honored him with the P. David Pearson Scholarly Influence Award, citing his book Choice Words: How Our
Language Affects Children’s Learning as having “demonstrably and positively influenced literacy teaching in
classrooms and districts nationally.”
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Kendall Hailey
“V” Is for Victory
hy was I reading Flaubert? Why not Nancy Mitford? Or Evelyn
Waugh? Or P.G. Wodehouse? I suppose I knew the wit I adored
would be wasted on me now, and so I sat by my baby boy’s incubator reading
Flaubert, so numbed by despair that I had chosen this small book of three
novellas, thinking that reading it would at
least put me one book closer to reading
all the books in our home. There was no
comfort for me in the good Monsieur, but
surely there would be no harm in reading
him aloud. Maybe, even in translation, I
would finally appreciate his dedication to
“le mot juste,” perhaps there would be a
word so damn “juste” it would stun me
back into life.
I began to read softly, so only Charlie and I could hear. Of course,
though I talked to him constantly, I had no idea if my son could hear at all. A
much-longed for pregnancy had ended without warning at 24 weeks and 5
days. Charlie had been born right after his twin Oliver, who had died in my
arms after living only 12 hours. Oliver had weighed more (one pound nine
ounces compared to Charlie’s one pound four) and he had suffered no brain
bleeds (technically, intraventricular hemorrhages, common to extremely
premature babies). Charlie’s were catastrophic.
Did he really need the minor works of Flaubert on top of all this?
Sitting by his incubator all day long, holding his tiny hand, I had run out of
conversation and Flaubert was all I had left to give. The older I get, the less
I believe that we have the power to make ourselves well or sick. I have seen
those longing to live die and those who care so little for life go on and on.
I can certainly take no credit for Charlie’s miraculous progress nor would I
have let myself assume the blame had the doctors’ hopeless predictions all
come true.
It is said that hearing is the last sense to leave when a person dies, so
perhaps it is also the first to take hold. We cannot be sure when Charlie
began to hear, but when he did, either my husband or I were probably
mid-sentence, talking, singing, or reading to him. We were lucky enough to
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be able to be by his incubator for most of the hours of the five months he
spent in the hospital. My husband is better at being still than I am. He can
actually just sit and be present. I could not face life without a book. There is
always one either in my hand, in my purse, or in the trunk of my car. (More
than once has my husband tried to excuse himself to go to the bathroom
during a dinner out only to hear my plaintive cry, “But I didn’t bring a
book!”) From the moment he could see, Charlie saw me with a book
in my hand. He heard the turning of pages, he heard the words, perhaps
somewhere deep inside he began to know that the world was so much
more than a plastic box and terrified parents.
A less discreet doctor told us that when Charlie’s brain surgeon first
opened his skull to place the ventriculo-peritoneal (VP) shunt that he
would need for the rest of his life, he said, “It looks like a bomb went off
in there.” Was it all those words that led Charlie’s brain to rebuild itself so
perfectly? Certainly, his relationship with words
has become one of the most important and
emotional of his life. Charlie has never had to
We cannot be
be told “Use your words” because he always
sure when Charlie
has, even before he could form a sentence.
When he was less than two, he would express
began to hear, but
anger by rhyming. “Dog, cog, wog, nog!” he
when he did, either
would cry. “Sit, nit, kit, wit!” Now he finds
an outlet for his four-year-old frustration in
my husband or
the misuse of words. Is his early exposure to
I were probably
Monsieur Mot Juste himself the cause? All I
know is you better not say “in” when “on”
mid-sentence,
would be the better choice if Charlie Miller is
talking, singing, or
hungry or tired. “Why did you say ‘in’? It’s not
‘in’! It’s ‘on’!” he howls as he hurls himself to
reading to him.
the floor. A little rest or food soon solves the
problem, but your mistake is not forgotten. Fed,
rested, and calm again, he will say in a level
voice, “Why did you say ‘in’? You know you
should have said ‘on’.”
Charlie discovered books with a wonder that would have made any
author weep for joy. As a baby, you could not read him a book with a car,
truck, or train pictured without his pushing the book to the floor so that he
could crawl onto the illustration and ride on it himself! Just as my dearest
loves are the English wits of the 1930s, Charlie has a favorite genre as well—
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garbage truck literature—fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. His favorites
cannot be heard often enough—from Trashy Town, which sounds like a
1950s film noir starring Gloria Grahame, to Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck,
which could have been the title for a heartwarming 1970s TV movie starring
Loretta Young.
Charlie could read books all day long. I certainly never thought I
would say to my child, “Please, no more books right now!” but parenting is
rife with humiliating surprises. However, I will say we rarely ever miss his
bedtime reading. Of course, unless we are reading a previously unheard work,
this has become what I like to think of as a soothing shared charade since
Charlie knows every single word of the books his Daddy or I are reading to
him and will correct us over the slightest mistake.
After we finish his books, I turn off the bedside light, turn on my
booklight, and start to read my book while he cuddles next to me and falls
asleep. I always tell him who I’m reading and he loves to ask the name of
the author rhetorically every night. “Are you reading P.G. Wodehouse?” He
likes to look at the words on the page as he falls asleep and just a few nights
ago offered this literary criticism, “This book has a lot of b’s in it.” When
he is feeling wide awake, he asks me to read to him from my book. I always
thought the words were going right over his sleepy head until one night I
came to a sentence with “truck” in it and he suddenly popped up, “Truck?
What?” My literary taste rose in his estimation that night.
I forget what denial or change of plans caused Charlie’s most articulate
tantrum to date, but soon tears were followed by a new declaration, “I don’t
love you, I don’t love garbage trucks, I don’t love books.” Charlie may have
been declaring war, but to see books so high on the list of everything he
suddenly didn’t love spelled victory to me.
•••••
Kendall Hailey published The Day I Became an Autodidact and the Advice, Adventures, and Acrimonies That Befell
Me Thereafter when she was 21 years old. A memoir of educating herself without going to college, it was voted one
of the Best Books of the Year by the American Library Association. 68
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Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
To Read, to Love, and to Stand Up
he major impulses of my life have been to love and to be loved, to
know and to be known, and to take a stance when necessary, which
means knowing where to stand. These three impulses are informed by my
reading life and have led to my primary professional goal: to read and to help
others read—not only books, but the world.
My life is continuously shaped and changed
by reading. Reading is part of my perpetual act of
becoming more fully myself and placing myself in the
world. Reading is a thrilling and “dangerous” game,
a way of surfing on the crest of the future’s breaking
wave, of questioning the status quo, of becoming
something new.
I trace my earliest memory of reading back to
our evenings together as a family in our small Ohio house. After dinner, my
father, a science teacher, sat in an upholstered green recliner and my brother
Jon and I would sit on opposite armrests as he read the evening newspaper or
a magazine. He would read an article or excerpt he thought we might find
interesting, as well as some of our favorite comics, which he would patiently
explain to us until we got the jokes. Then we would leave our father in peace
and migrate to our mother, in a brown upholstered swivel chair, and sit on her
lap as she read us picture book versions of The Odyssey, the Greek myths, the
King Arthur stories (how I loved and still love Parsifal!), The Arabian Nights,
stories from the Bible, the Frances books (Best Friends for Frances still holds a
place in my heart), and so much more.
How glad I am that Mom and Dad both treated us like real readers
from the start: they read all manner of texts, and they read not to us, but with
us. I’m grateful they also let us choose our own books and forge our own
reading lives.
My parents related to me, in part, through reading. I learned that reading
was essential to learning how to love and relate to others. My parents taught
me that reading is a conversation, a way of listening to others and the world—
of listening new ideas into existence. Harold Brodkey asserts: “Reading is
an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act. I say this
because it provides the most prolonged and intense exposure of one mind
69
to another.” Through reading, I related to my parents, to characters, and to
authors, many of whom were distant from me in time, space, and experience,
and whose ideas differed greatly from mine. I learned to listen, to consider
others’ ideas, and decide whether I wished to affirm, adapt, or resist.
Reading was always essential to my
dating and love life: I only dated girls
who were readers, and I used reading to
Reading is a thrilling
pursue my romantic relationships: “Read
and “dangerous”
one of mine; I’ll read one of yours. Then
let’s talk. Let’s explore each other’s inner
game, a way of
geography. Let us see what we have in
surfing on the
common as well as what we can learn
from each other.” Sharing reading is a way
crest of the future’s
of knowing and a way to be known. It has
breaking wave,
enriched my marriage, my parenthood,
and my friendships.
of questioning
Resistance—knowing when to take a
the status quo,
stand—has likewise always been essential
to my life. It is through resistance, as well as
of becoming
alignment, that we stake our identities and
something new.
explore the boundaries of the self. Whenever
we align with an idea or with a group, we are
resisting something else. Conscious resistance,
as well as alignment, is energizing. Roger
Soder offers a nifty explanation:
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“Compliance is never edifying, it never rings with human dignity, and it
never pulses with excitement and curiosity and wonder. You’d never come
running home from school telling your parents how much you complied that
day and how much you liked it!”
Reading has taught me the terms of many a debate and the excitement
and joy of participating in those debates.
I love Stephen Spender’s wonderful poem of heroism:
“I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history . . .
Whose lovely ambition/Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song . . .”
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For me, the heroes are authors. They sing, lips touched with fire, of the
Spirit and of the soul’s history. I am grateful to them. They have given me
great gifts . . . gifts of transition to new ways of thinking, understanding,
and being.
How do I return these great favors? As my daughters (the incomparable
Fiona and Jasmine) were growing up, I’d carry them to bed, one in each arm
(which I did until they were 9 and 11), and then I’d read to them. We read the
newspaper, the Old and New Testaments, The Odyssey, the Greek myths, The
Arabian Nights, and, every night, numerous picture books—I must have read
Madeline 4,000 times, and when I finally hid the book, my girls found it and
insisted on another reading. They are adults now, but they still know I will
always reimburse them for the price of a book. A book: what an investment
in the future, what a legacy to pass on!
Like my father and mother, I became a teacher. I have dedicated my life
to promoting reading and to helping teachers create nurturing environments
and interventions that assist student reading. I have argued that students need
to be helped to do what expert readers do—not only to learn their stances
and strategies, but to make choices, to read what they need, to contend with
issues in the world, and to forge their own reading lives in ways that help
them become their best possible selves.
I teach reading. The gift is one of possibility and transformation; the
capacity to imagine what has not yet come to be—for oneself, for others, for
the world. And with imagination—with reading—all things are possible.
•••••
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D., has been a teacher for 32 years. He is the author of 32 books about literacy and
teaching. His latest book, co-authored with Michael W. Smith, is Reading Unbound: Why Kids Need to Read
What They Want—and Why We Should Let Them. He is the editor of three series of issues-oriented books for
adolescents: The Ten, XBooks, and Issues 21.
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Anne E. Cunningham
Friends for Life
s a young girl, I found solace in books. Each night before bed, listening to
my mother read Winnie the Pooh or When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne
entertained me and made me feel safe. I loved hearing her tell stories about the
adventures Pooh and his friends had in the Hundred Acre Wood and I would
imagine myself getting into similar predicaments, all the
while knowing that I was tucked in for the night and had
nothing to worry about.
I also found sitting in a comfy chair at the Baldwin
Public Library in Birmingham, Michigan, where my
mother would take me and my three siblings every few
weeks to be a soothing and calming routine. These were
spaces and places where I could immerse myself in a
new world. Discovering a new story or book series on
a topic I enjoyed was exhilarating, and each new book
made me feel as if I had found a new friend. Nancy Drew was so confident,
sophisticated, and clever. Her adventures around the world and the danger she
experienced were extraordinary to a shy, awkward Midwestern girl. I also loved
discovering characters who were more like me. The protagonist of A Tree Grows
In Brooklyn, Francie Nolan, shared my sense of imagination and idealism in the
face of adversity and life’s many challenges. We were both Irish and even though I
was from Michigan, my parents were from Brooklyn, and both Francie and I were
young when our fathers died. In spite of our sadness, we were sustained by the
wonder of a tree returning to life—a reflection of our own hope and resilience.
Reading about these girls made me feel understood and helped me see the
possibilities beyond my doorstep.
Yet each week I faced a dilemma. As a young girl who spent some of her best
years caught up with a book, how could I choose from among my favorite friends?
Anne of Green Gables was another with whom I loved to spend time. The library
book limit of 8-12 books forced me to choose and created much consternation.
During these early years, books gave me an opportunity to think about
situations I had never considered on my own. And as I got older, reading books
offered me a chance to vicariously experience the activities I longed to explore
even when the experience itself was beyond the resources or time I had available.
As an aspiring young equestrian, with My Friend Flicka by my side, I felt the thrill
of galloping on a horse across the lush fields and sailing over a hedge. I could smell
72
the alfalfa as it was pitched over the grill and into the stall. Books remained my
close friends and, like all good friends, pushed me to think in new ways and see
how exciting the world could be.
Years later, books provided an opportunity for
me to explore the inner psychological landscape
Books remained my
of my maturing mind. As an adolescent in high
close friends and,
school searching for the meaning of life outside of
her Catholic upbringing, Herman Hesse offered
like all good friends,
me an alternative viewpoint. Siddhartha listens to
pushed me to think
the river and learns what it taught his friend: as
the river flows into the ocean and is returned as
in new ways and
rain, all life is connected in an endless cycle. I felt
see how exciting
deeply captivated by the ideas contained within the
philosophical works I consumed during this time
the world could be.
and I rarely regretted the sleepless nights necessary
to finish the books. While a literacy theorist might
value Siddhartha over Nancy Drew, I have always
felt lucky that I collected many and varied book
“friends,” because each provided the nourishment I
needed to understand the world around me.
As an adult who can get around the library’s rule by splurging at the
bookstore when I can’t wait to get my hands on a new book, I am no longer
limited by the number of books I can bring home—only the time I can allocate
to reading. Even so, I can imagine no better nighttime ritual than the one my
mother taught me many years ago—to tuck myself into bed with a book and,
from the comfort of my own home, explore new worlds with new friends who
nurture and expand my mind and spirit.
b
•••••
Anne E. Cunningham, a former preschool and elementary teacher, received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology
from the University of Michigan, and is a professor of cognition and development in the Graduate School of Education
at University of California, Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the American
Psychological Association. A recipient of multiple awards and fellowships, Cunningham has been awarded the
International Reading Association’s Dissertation of the Year Award, the George Graham Award, the National Academy
of Education: Spencer Fellowship, and the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies for Educational Practice Fellowship.
Known for her research on reading acquisition and development, Cunningham examines the cognitive and motivational
processes underlying reading ability and the interplay of context, development, and literacy instruction. Her research with
mentor Keith E. Stanovich demonstrated the rich cognitive consequences of reading volume and engagement, illustrating
that reading really does make you smarter. Her new book, co-authored with Dr. Jamie Zibulsky, written for parents and
teachers, entitled Book Smart: How to Develop and Support Successful Motivated Readers, illustrates how children learn
to read, as well as what parents and teachers can do to promote children’s reading development and love of reading.
Cunningham can be reached at Booksmartfamily.com and [email protected].
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bM
Glenna Sloan
Literacy Begins in the Heart
y mother moved from cupboard to table to stove preparing the family’s
weekly supply of bread and cinnamon buns. As she moved about, my
mother talked, telling a story to keep me safely occupied, having warned me
of the dangers of being “underfoot.” Some stories were difficult to understand,
I remember, but she patiently answered my many
questions. Over time I developed favorites, begging to
hear again and again about the baby Moses, adrift alone
on the river in a bulrush basket until a kind lady rescued
him, and of brave David, a young man who saved his
people from Goliath, a giant enemy twice his size. Once
I asked her where the stories came from. “I read them in
a book,” she told me.
Money was scarce during the Great Depression. We
owned few books besides the Bible. In our Ontario hamlet, population 300,
there was no library. But I knew what reading was because my father sat in
his high-backed chair by the window most days after work, staring at a large
paper covered in black marks. Often he invited me to sit on his lap “to read
the funnies together.” Weary from a long day’s labor, my father would nod off,
leaving me to figure out what Blondie and Dagwood or the Katzenjammer
Kids were saying as they acted out their stories. The comics taught me to read.
At six, I was a first grader in the local one-room school, where I remained
until I graduated from eighth grade at age 13. There was no library beyond a
bookcase that contained dictionaries and other reference material. Stacked on
one shelf were National Geographic magazines someone had donated. In the early
grades, we read from a primer starring Mary, John, and Peter which, like its
American counterpart featuring Dick and Jane, was utterly bereft of good stories
and fine poems. But all was not lost. I knew what stories were and that they
came from books. Every month a box of books was delivered from the county
library to our school. Whoever selected them seemed unaware that they were
to be read by children. I remember King Lear appearing when I was 10 or 11
and my valiant, but frustrating, efforts to read his story. Books by Daphne Du
Maurier and Lloyd C. Douglas, intended for adults, were easier. I read every one.
My sister, 15 years older, was a teacher in a faraway town. She tried to fill
the literary gaps in my life by bringing books and an occasional magazine
74
when she visited. By age 13, I had read the Hardy Boys mysteries; a series that
chronicled the adventures of Canadian schoolgirl, Ruth Fielding, a literary
cousin of America’s Nancy Drew; and Anne of Green Gables, plus many of its
sequels, setting each book aside before reaching the end, postponing the time
I had to leave the friends inside. I read every book she brought as well as the
stories, both factual and fictional, in Liberty magazine.
One of our elementary school teachers was with us for several years. She was
an expert knitter. That skill, together with her ability to choose fine books and
read them aloud effectively, made her memorable.
Each day after lunch, she would sit on a desktop
facing the entire school, a smattering of pupils,
My early reading
Grades 1 through 8, reading aloud as she knit.
revealed to me a
Some days, having a self-imposed knitting quota
to meet, she read on and on from her personal
world outside my
store of books, valuables she kept locked away—
village, a world
allowing only senior students with washed hands
to occasionally examine them at their desks. I
of possibilities.
listened, enthralled at the exploits of Pooh and
Piglet; I happily chanted the refrain of Millions of
Cats; became a friend of Heidi and Tom Sawyer;
and delighted in The Hobbit.
From my earliest days, I was hooked on
stories for a lifetime. My early reading revealed to me a world outside my village,
a world of possibilities. Love of stories helped me decide to become a teacher.
What could be a better life than sharing with children what you love? I wanted
to study the best ways to help students develop literacy, always keeping in mind
that anyone who has never thrilled to words is likely to remain indifferent to
reading and writing them. From experience, I understood that literacy begins in
the heart, not the head.
b
•••••
Glenna Sloan, Ph.D., taught graduate courses in literacy development and children’s literature for several decades
in the Department of Elementary Education at Queens College of the City University of New York, where she
also served five years as department chair. Besides the classics, The Child as Critic: Developing Literacy Through
Literature, K–8; Give Them Poetry! A Guide for Sharing Poetry with Children; and Tales Out of School: Reflections on
Teaching and Learning, she has published three novels for teens, numerous articles in professional journals, a series
on reading and study skills for junior high school students, and a sixth-grade language arts text. She was an author
and consultant for the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich series, Literature: Uses of the Imagination. In 2001, Sloan was the
recipient of the International Reading Association’s Arbuthnot Award for an Outstanding Teacher of Children’s and
Young Adult Literature. Visit her website at www.glennasloan.com.
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bI
Jim Burke
A New Orientation
sat at a large, elegant writing table made of dark wood looking at the
yellow Star of David inscribed with the word Jude my host’s father was
made to wear many years ago during the war. The star was now encased in
glass and as I looked at it, I thought of my father. The walls around me were
made of books; there was no wall to see—just books,
the spines of which spoke in many languages, came
in many colors, and stood at different heights in the
sanctity of the study of the small apartment my wife
Susan and I were renting that summer. This was the
summer when our first son Evan was two; the summer
when his younger brother was entering his sixth month
in the womb; and the summer my father and Susan’s
father were both dying. My father was then the age I
am now as I write this. It was also the summer that I received a fellowship to
study the Book of Psalms as poetry at the University of Wisconsin.
But let me back up a bit to explain where I was and how I got there.
I read nothing as a kid except Serpico (many times throughout my teens)
and Bless the Beasts and the Children. As soon as I entered the local junior
college, however, something stirred, woke, and left me changed forever: I
discovered reading.
I remember one day around that time, I was maybe 18: I sat in my dark
bedroom, in a rocking chair, reading Homer’s Odyssey for the first time.
I was beginning my own odyssey, my only light coming in through the
window which suddenly darkened. It was my father, shirtless, tapping the
bedroom window with an empty beer can, asking if I could get him another.
I remember feeling frustrated, agitated, imagining he thought I was doing
nothing—only reading. But I was not just reading, I was reaching for that next
self, doing for myself what Telemachus had accomplished in The Odyssey:
going out on my own, moving from who I was to what I would become years
later when I sat down in that room to study the psalms the summer that both
my father and father-in-law were entering the last months of their lives.
In Wisconsin that summer, we discussed the psalms all day in a small
circle, 15 teachers gathered together around texts, words, and ideas which
rose up through my eyes to enter my life. There at that desk, the sun lighting
76
the yellow badge encased in glass, I read the psalms and the ideas of those
scholars who had devoted their lives to the study of those sacred texts.
Throughout the summer, we discussed one idea in particular: that the
psalms fell into three types. Psalms of Orientation, in which we give thanks
for all we have. Psalms of Disorientation, which sing of loss, their ink-dark
words like a forest through which we wander, the way forward lost to us.
And Psalms of New Orientation, which celebrate all that we endured as we
crossed over to the other side of our pain where a new self, a second chance,
awaits us, one pointing a way forward we could not imagine in the midst of
our troubles.
These are the songs I read every day that summer while my young son
laughed and the other one grew towards life, while my wife and I were as
happy as the day was long, and our mothers
back home prepared to enter those new lives
that would begin for them that September.
But I was not just
It was the psalms and their scholars that
reading, I was
kept me company that summer, as I moved
from one page to the next, from one age to
reaching for that
the next, from my orientation as a happy
next self, doing
new father through the disorientation of a
for myself what
son who would soon lose his own, to the
new orientation of being a man who would
Telemachus had
have to make his own way through the years
to do for himself
ahead, through those recurring cycles of
orientation-disorientation-new orientation. In
in The Odyssey:
the psalms I found comfort and wisdom, and
going out on my
a conversation that kept me company there in
own, moving from
Wisconsin as it had kept all who read them
company for the last two millennia.
who I was to what
At summer’s end, I returned home a
I would become.
changed man, transformed in that way we are
when we come in contact with the perfect
book at just the right moment. Throughout
our lives we face such moments as Psalm 23
describes: “Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy
rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
That summer and all those since, the sons from those years having
grown and gone into their own lives, it is the psalms that have helped to
b
77
orient me, and the poetry of Seamus Heaney, whose words became so
dear to me around the time of my father’s death. Sons of fathers we both
respected for their rugged integrity, Heaney spoke often of the Bible and
his love of its language, of men such as our fathers whom it was not our
destiny to follow into the fields.
In my own way, though, I honor my father, who spent 38 years in the
publishing industry, every time I teach a book, every time I write one,
every time I read those texts that allowed me to endure his loss and better
understand the lessons his life offered for my own.
•••••
Jim Burke teaches English at Burlingame High School in Burlingame, California, where he has worked since
1992. He is the author of more than 20 books, including The Common Core Companion series and The English
Teacher’s Companion. He is currently working with Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein on a high school edition
of They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing for W. W. Norton. He has received numerous
awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from CATE, Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference
on English Leadership, Best Social Network for Educators as moderator of the English Companion Ning, and
the Intellectual Freedom Award from NCTE. He currently serves on various committees at PARCC, the Advanced
Placement program, and the College Board 6–12 English Language Arts Advisory Committee. He lives in San
Francisco with his wife, three children, dog, and two tortoises.
78
b
b
Illumination
Books can often show us who we are and
how we, the people of the world, regardless
of race, color, or creed, are all connected at
the core of humanity.
~Marva Allen
79
b
Naomi Shihab Nye
I Will Float Through This Day
I
f the big people fight. If there is no money. If the grandfather forgets
how to smile and sits on the couch in the living room, hours on
end, staring straight ahead. And then has a heart attack, right before
the tornado. When the car slides into a ditch,
smashing its headlights. When the mother cries
and cries. For small things as well as large. Milk
souring. Birds nipping all the cherries on the
trees before she can pick the high ones. Daddy
coming home late. It’s okay. The books stacked by
the bed will still be holding their calm sentences,
their fruitful phrases . . . nothing can erase them.
You can take those words into your own head
and heart and mouth, turning them over under the tongue like refreshing
drops that soothe the throat. But they will soothe everything, not just
the throat. There are other worlds. You could have been someone else.
You might have lived in the white house on Tiffin Street with the brick
steps and the pointed gable. That could be your room. You are not stuck.
Emily, Carl, Langston, Rabindranath, Cristina, Margaret Wise, Louisa May,
Walt, E.B. You belong to me. People survived many worse things. People
you don’t know might like you better than anyone you can see. And that
keeps you going.
•••••
Naomi Shihab Nye’s forthcoming book is The Turtle of Oman, a chapter book from Greenwillow. She won
the NSK Neustadt Award for Children’s Literature in 2013 and has written or edited around 34 books.
(Photo of Naomi Shihab Nye by Ha Lam.)
80
bC
Georgia Heard
Books Are the Thread We Follow
hirp . . . chirp . . . chirp squeaked the very quiet cricket sounding
more like a very tired cricket. Where is that sound coming from? I
searched through a pile of books on my study floor, after having moved
to our new house the week before, and spotted a tattered copy of The
Very Quiet Cricket still chirping after 15 years.
As I stood there holding the book, I remember
reading these words dozens of times as I rocked
my son to sleep, “One warm day, from a tiny egg
a little cricket was born . . . ”
There in my study with hundreds of my
books around me, The Very Quiet Cricket in my
hands, the words from William Stafford’s poem
The Way It Is came to mind:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change . . .
Nothing you can do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
Words stay with us, marinated in meaning and sound, if it’s a memorable
book, no matter how long ago we read it. We remember how the book
made us feel—how it tugged at our heart, and still tugs, as we grow older
and change. Books are our constant, our North Star that connects us no
matter how many years have passed. Books are the threads we follow, that
lead us home, to our own voices—to ourselves.
•••••
Georgia Heard received her M.F.A. in Poetry from Columbia University and is a founding member of the Teachers
College Reading and Writing Project in New York City. She is the author or editor of 14 books, and is currently
working on an anthology of poetry for women entitled On the Porch.
81
bR
Pedro Noguera
Reading Saved My Life
eading saved my life at an early age. Actually, to be honest, I must admit
that at first it just saved me from having to do extra chores. When I was
a boy growing up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn (a neighborhood
better known for producing rap stars like Biggie Smalls and boxers like Mike
Tyson than for producing college professors like me),
my mother would make us take the bus to the public
library after we finished our chores every Saturday
morning. At first I didn’t want to go. I would much
rather have stayed at home watching my favorite
cartoons. However, my mother made it clear that if I
chose not to go to the library, the alternative would
be extra chores, not cartoons. Reluctantly, I took the
bus along with other kids in my neighborhood to this
strange place with lots of books.
When I got there, I was greeted by an extremely warm and friendly
Panamanian woman named Ms. McDonald. Though she didn’t know me or
the other children, she told us how happy she was to see us and she seemed
to really mean it. She proceeded to wrap her arms around us as she led us to
long tables where books were displayed. She took time to get to know each
of us and to find out what we were interested in. When she came to me,
I explained that I was interested in action and adventure. Up to that point
I hadn’t been much of a reader. I was eight years old and though I could
read, it wasn’t something I did on my own time, much less for pleasure. Ms.
McDonald seized upon my stated interest and exclaimed that she had just
the book for me. She handed me a copy of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in
Time. I looked at it not knowing what to make of it because the cover wasn’t
particularly inviting. Nonetheless, I accepted her recommendation and, even
before boarding the bus to go home, I commenced with reading the book.
From that moment, I couldn’t put the book down. Although it was
not the kind of book I would have been drawn to on my own—I didn’t
particularly like science fiction—I read it almost non-stop. By the next
Saturday I had finished the book and wanted to talk about it with Ms.
McDonald. She took great pleasure in seeing that I had enjoyed the book
and proceeded to give me another. This happened every Saturday when I
82
visited the library. I would finish a book during the week and be ready for
another by the time I saw her again. I soon found that reading was the best
thing to do whenever I was bored: riding in the car or on the bus, on days
when we were stuck inside due to bad weather, or before I went to sleep.
I began to realize that reading had truly saved my life because it had opened
my imagination and freed me from the limitations of my environment. I was
no longer merely a little boy growing up in the projects of Brooklyn. I was
visiting far-off lands, traveling through history,
and grappling with world events. Biographies
of interesting and important people became my
Reading changed
favorite genre and through them I developed
my life by saving
an appreciation and love for history and
politics. My identity changed and I began to
me from a narrow
see myself as a person who could accomplish
world of parochial
great things. I began challenging my teachers
when I thought that the information they
ideas and by
presented in class, especially on topics related to
allowing me to
American history, was skewed or biased, and I
began sharing what I learned with my friends,
see beyond the
even when they weren’t interested.
confines of the
Reading changed my life by saving me
from a narrow world of parochial ideas and
world I knew.
by allowing me to see beyond the confines of
the world I knew. I am forever grateful to Ms.
McDonald, and to my mother for making me
take the bus to the library.
•••••
b
Pedro Noguera, Ph.D., is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education and the executive director of the Metropolitan
Center for Urban Education at New York University. He is the author of nine books and over 150 articles and
monographs. Dr. Noguera serves on the boards of numerous national and local organizations including the
Economic Policy Institute, the Young Women’s Leadership Institute, the After School Corporation, and The Nation.
He is also a member of the National Academy of Education.
83
bF
Marva Allen
Caribbean Sky and My Home With Books
riday nights were always a scurry of excitement. We couldn’t wait until
the twinkling stars (brighter than I have ever seen elsewhere) lit the
Caribbean sky because that was when Daddy would start story time. My sisters
and I would be ready with pots, pans, and ladles to create exquisite (only in
my memory) music to accompany the story Daddy
would tell that night. Those dreamy nights seeded me
with the imagination and wonderment that would
give rise to my lifelong love of stories. When I was 13
and my father read to me “Paradise Lost” by Milton, I
had finally figured out where he got all the beautiful
words that wove a quilt of comfort and ignited my own
imagination—from books!
Granted, I was reading by the time I was three
years old, which is not uncommon for kids in Jamaica. By the age of nine I
was in boarding school in the capital of Jamaica, Kingston, which is also not
uncommon for Jamaican children. Away from home and Daddy’s stories,
reading became my lifeline. Reading for me is like DNA woven into the
strands of my life.
I was always the first to arrive in literature class, securing my seat right up
front, eager for the words that would transport me into other worlds. By the
time I was in the third form (being a British Colony at the time, Jamaica had
adopted the English learning system), I had read almost all the Shakespeare
plays, could recite Longfellow, Wordsworth, and Byron by heart, and I had
further developed my musical talent by moving from pots and pans to the
piano. In fourth form when I got to Orwell’s 1984, I had already figured out
that my very strict Catholic School, Convent of Mercy Alpha, was indeed
molding us into “citizens.”
I have always understood the world through books, but, as you can
glean, my love for words also included the songs and ditties that held such
great stories: “By Yon Bonnie Banks and by Yon Bonnie Braes” taught
me that many paths lead to the same place—something I would come
to appreciate even more as time went on. The words of Johann Strauss’s
“Gentle Breezes” painted such a vivid picture of “the wind that touches us
with grace, offering unseen companionship” that it made having faith easy.
84
The cross-pollination of words that gives rise to stories, expressed in various
artistic ways, had me at hello.
By the time I got to college in America, my world opened up to literature
to which I had never been privy. My understanding of the struggle of
America’s blacks came through Ralph Ellison’s Black Boy, Toni Morrison’s The
Bluest Eyes, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In my world
lit classes, I was introduced to international writers and my world opened up
like a flower.
Reading is a basic building block of life and can lead to a very satisfying
and well-built house inside our minds and hearts. Words made into sentences
made into paragraphs, pages, and books hold a wealth of information for the
mind, the soul, and the spirit. Simply put, reading changes lives. It did mine.
Books can often show us who we are and how we, the people of the world,
regardless of race, color, or creed, are all
connected at the core of humanity. Art, in any
form, can do that, as it is part of the universal
language. I certainly understood that.
Reading for me is
I have had many professional lives, as a
technologist, writer, lecturer, nurse, but little
like DNA woven
did I know then that I would spend many years
into the strands
of my later life making books accessible to
all by becoming a bookstore owner. The best
of my life.
part of it all was not just reading the books but
being able to give a book to someone who
couldn’t afford it but who would love to read
it. Why? Because I know that books open the
door to worlds before unimagined.
•••••
b
Marva Allen was president and co-owner of USI, a multi-million dollar technology firm in Southfield, Michigan,
that was nominated three times for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurship Award. After retiring from the world of
technology, she became the CEO of Hue-Man Bookstore, the largest and best-known independent African American
bookstore in the country. Allen is the author of two acclaimed books—Protegee and Camouflage, the sequel. Her
latest novel, If I Should Die Tonight, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2015. Allen is also a partner in the
imprint Open Lens. She holds a B.S.N. from SGI, England, a B.S. in Biology from the University of Michigan, and an
M.S. in Health and Business Administration.
85
b
Yvonne Siu-Runyan
Hope, Breath, and Light
“Hula is the language of the heart and therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian
people.”—David Kala-kaua (1836-1891), Hawaii’s last reigning king
“...it’s hard to transmit feelings, but it’s our obligation. Don’t do empty movements.
Do a piece of your heart. People need to feel the beauty of
your dance.”
—Auntie Nona Beamer (1923–2008) at the World
Conference on Hula, 2005
W
hen anyone asks me, “What is dear to you?” my
response is, “Dancing hula. It takes me away to
another place. Hula is my culture—it’s in my blood, in
my soul, and it makes me happy.”
Hula is the art of storytelling through dance and
every part of the body is involved. For any hula to be done well, one must
interpret the story and its layers of meaning—to look beyond the literal meaning
of the poetic words and dance from the heart. To be the hula, one must read
deeply and metaphorically in order to interpret both the literal translation as
well as the multiple metaphors in the story. The essence of hula is to go inward,
to touch one’s center—to feel the words and their layers of meaning. Then, and
only then, can hula be truly danced with mana, the light and power within.
I take heed from my Auntie Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha
Beamer (1923–2008), who we affectionately called Auntie Nona. She constantly
reminded us to “Dance from the heart!” It is a hula dancer’s obligation to
dance hula with ha (breath) so that others feel the beauty and understand the
multiple layers of meaning of the dance. So I read and re-read both the Hawaiian
words and the English translation to remember the mo’olelo (story) as well as to
understand the deeper meanings of the oli (chant) or mele (song): the poetic layers
of the Hawaiian language. Without this kind of understanding, it is difficult to
dance hula from the heart with expression and meaning.
When dancing hula, I live the dance and remember not to do empty motions.
Similarly, when I read, be it fiction or nonfiction, I live the book.
Without reading, my soul would die. Ever stay up all night reading a book
because you are so enthralled and lost track of time? I have. My father would
tell me, “Moe moe time. Go to sleep. Stop reading under the covers or you will
86
damage your eyes and be tired tomorrow.” Usually I heeded my father’s words,
but there were some books that I just couldn’t put down. It was worth being
tired the next day.
My self-selected reading diet during my K-12 years comprised books mostly
related to the Hawaiian Islands and its many cultures. I was sick of Dick, Jane,
Sally, and their dog, Spot. I really disliked reading the basal texts. The assigned
readings in grades K-12 just didn’t excite me.
Fortunately, while in elementary school, once a month parents would drive the
students to the only public library on O’ahu. The elementary school I attended
didn’t have classroom or school libraries. Going to the only public library on
O’ahu was a real treat and it fostered my love for libraries and the many books they
housed. Just walking up the cement stairs and passing the stone lions guarding the
entrance made me feel as though I was entering another world, one filled with
wonder and joy. To this day, I still love the smell and feel of a library—with all its
books and other media housing so much knowledge and so many adventures.
Anticipation and bliss washed over me as I counted down the days until
the next library visit. Once there, I plopped myself in the folk literature section.
I loved reading tales from China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, India, and those
written by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. And I adored
reading stories about the Hawaiian deities such as Maui, ancient hero and chief;
Pele, Goddess of Fire; Ku, God of War; and Lono, God of Agriculture. Reading
about these Hawaiian deities grounded me in dancing the hula and knowing
my roots. Through reading Hawaiian folklore, I learned the importance of pono
(goodness, uprightness, morality) as well as what is valued in my culture.
Every book I read changes me in some way. Like everyone else, I am a work
in progress, and reading helps me become more insightful, and, I hope, a better
person. We all need to reach back to learn about our heritage in order to reach
out to others, and move forward with hope, breath, and light.
•••••
Yvonne Siu-Runyan, Ph.D., is professor emerita at the University of Northern Colorado and past president of the
National Council of Teachers of English. Dr. Siu-Runyan has taught Grades K–12 in the states of Hawaii, Michigan,
Ohio, Colorado, and California. In addition, she has worked as a District Reading Specialist and Language Arts
Coordinator for Boulder Valley Schools, and has taught undergraduates, post-baccalaureate students earning
their teaching certificates, master’s degree candidates, and doctoral students. She is published in refereed
journals and books, has presented workshops and papers at local, state, national, and international venues, and
has served on and chaired local, statewide, national, and international committees. Dr. Siu-Runyan has been
involved in education for over 45 years.
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Deborah J. Stipek
The Light in My Hands
was about eight when my grandmother (and partner in crime) gave me
a little light that attached to the back cover of a book. The gift enabled
me to read under the covers and thus escape my mother’s watchful eye
at bedtime. I was a reader as long as I can remember—willing to sacrifice
more sleep than my mother believed was healthy.
We didn’t have books at home, but I was a regular at
the Tacoma Public Library. I stuck with an author to
the end. I remember sobbing (and being shushed by
the librarian) when I found out that I had read the
last Beverly Cleary book and that Henry Huggins,
Ramona, and Ribsy would no longer be an active
part of my life. Since my childhood, I have run
through many authors—Tolstoy, Dickens, Dreiser,
Stendhal, and others; Isabelle Allende is my current favorite. To this day,
I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I enter a
library or bookstore. I panic when I am close
to the end of a book and don’t have a new
How did reading
one at hand to start.
change my life? I
The first book I owned was Louisa May
Alcott’s Little Women, a gift from my aunt.
don’t know what
I read it over and over, in part because it
kind of a person I
was my only book, but also because I felt
the need to live through the sorrow of
would have been
Beth’s death many times. My adult daughter
if I hadn’t spent a
(who also had her head buried in a book
throughout her childhood) recently gave
great deal of time
me the same edition that I had as a child;
immersed in other
I learned that being 63 years old does not
diminish the need for a good cry when Beth
people’s lives
dies (again).
and cultures.
How did reading change my life? I don’t
know what kind of a person I would have
been if I hadn’t spent a great deal of time
immersed in other people’s lives and cultures.
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I know that books have exposed me to a world I would never be able to
(or in many cases want to) experience directly. I have been introduced
to despots and humanitarians, oppressors and the oppressed. I have been
exposed to social conventions and hierarchies that have cruel effects on
humans, even those in privileged stations, but also to individuals who
have cured diseases and achieved extraordinary deeds. I have encountered
human suffering beyond my imagination. (I was so distressed by Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as an elementary school child that I
had to stay home from school the day after I finished it.) I have learned
history through the eyes of people who lived it and I have lived different
cultures and religions through characters in books.
I imagine that all of these experiences have taught me empathy,
compassion, and some measure of humility. They have definitely broadened
my horizons, piqued my curiosity, entertained me, and brought great joy. I
cannot imagine a world or a life without books.
•••••
Deborah J. Stipek, Ph.D., is the dean and the Judy Koch Professor of Education at Stanford University. Her
doctorate is from Yale University in developmental psychology. Dr. Stipek’s scholarship concerns instructional
effects on children’s achievement and motivation, early childhood education, elementary education, and school
reform. She served for five years on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academy of
Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education. She also chaired the National Academy of
Sciences Committee on Increasing High School Students’ Engagement & Motivation to Learn and the MacArthur
Foundation Network on Teaching and Learning. Dr. Stipek served 10 of her 23 years at UCLA as director of the
Corinne Seeds University Elementary School and the Urban Education Studies Center. She joined the Stanford
School of Education as dean and professor of education in January 2001.
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Alfred W. Tatum
Defined by Books
s a young rambunctious boy who loved sports and the outdoors,
books made the indoors equally pleasant. I could easily shift from the
baseball field to a cozy spot on my mother’s couch. My boyhood years were
often balanced with a basketball game and a good piece of literature. As I
reflect on my reading experiences, I am sure that I
did not get the recommended amount of sleep for a
growing boy. Who needs sleep anyway when there is
a crisis in the school gymnasium or when you are so
close to solving a mystery that you would toss and
turn all night if you did not spend the additional 30
minutes deep inside the detective story to put your
mind at ease?
How I loved having my very own library card!
It allowed me to indulge in the lives and
stories of others. I am glad the librarian
recognized me, encouraged my frequent
Many of the texts
visits, and invited me to check out more
I read as a child have
books than the standard limit. It is difficult
to imagine how my life would be different
been like roadmap
if I had only been allowed to read one
markers, showing
book at a time—for me that would be
me a range of life
like attending a party with only one
other guest!
options, suggesting
It was in the sixth grade when I realized
the advantages of
that I loved every new word that I met. It
one direction over
was great to be greeted by both small and
big words. My eyes would caress these new
another, helping me
words—as well as my “old friends,” the
define myself not only
words that were already a part of me.
as a reader but also
I often felt the need to read multiple
books at the same time. Part of me was
as a human being.
afraid that if I spent too much time with
one book, the others would become
jealous! Therefore, I often found myself
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stretched across my bed with two or three books. I could be with Laura
Ingalls Wilder on the prairie one hour and solving a mystery in the garage
of a boy detective the next. The next evening I would find myself reading
Lincoln’s words in the Gettysburg Address after having spent the morning
reading short stories in an anthology of African American writers.
Many of the texts I read as a child have been like roadmap markers,
showing me a range of life options, suggesting the advantages of one
direction over another, helping me define myself not only as a reader but
also as a human being. The books’ imprints in my life have been lasting,
creating a textual lineage that has shaped me, making me who I am today.
As a father, I now quietly celebrate when I see my sons alternate
their time among multiple books during the evening hours. I see them
sampling various texts, searching for those that resonate, abandoning
those that don’t. They are building their own textual lineages, finding the
books they need at each point in their own personal development, the
books that they find engaging, that prompt them to ask essential questions
about who they are and who they might want to become. I occasionally
step in and suggest titles, but I also trust them to find the books that
may ultimately define them and help point the way toward their own
promising and productive lives.
•••••
Alfred W. Tatum, Ph.D., serves as Dean of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Illinois
at Chicago where he also directs the UIC Reading Clinic. He has served on the board of directors for both the
International Reading Association and the Literacy Research Association, and written widely on the development
of young African American males for such publications as the Harvard Educational Review, Urban Education,
and Reading & Writing Quarterly. Tatum is the author of Fearless Voices: Engaging a New Generation of African
American Adolescent Writers, Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males, and Reading for Their Life, as well as
the Scholastic reading-writing resource, ID: Voice, Vision, and Identity. He is the proud father of two sons.
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Kelly Gallagher
From Aquaman to Shakespeare
very Saturday, immediately after I finished mowing the lawn, my
father handed over my weekly allowance: two bucks. With this
embarrassment of riches jammed in my front pocket, I would jump on my
Schwinn Stingray and pedal the long ride to 7-Eleven, where I couldn’t
wait to acquire my weekly bounty: a Slurpee, a box
of Lemonhead candy, and a new comic book.
Sometimes, I couldn’t wait to get home to catch
up with the latest exploits of Aquaman, so I would
sit on the sidewalk in front of the store and dive into
the adventure right there. Thirty minutes later, when
Aquaman had finally defeated the evil forces of
Aquabeast, I would jump back on my bike and ride
home, the story still swimming in my head.
All these years later, things haven’t changed much. I am still using my
“allowance” to purchase books. I don’t sit and read in front of 7-Eleven
anymore; instead, I read on the subway, in the park, and on airplanes. I still
have stories swirling in my head—tales and thoughts that have helped me
live a richer life.
As a high school English teacher, I now experience that richness every
day. I long ago traded Aquaman for William Shakespeare, but when you
come to think of it, the world of Aquaman
and the world of Hamlet are not that far
apart. Both fight against injustice. Both rebel
Stories help me
against power struggles. Both are embroiled
in dysfunctional family issues. And both
make connections
help me to better understand the dynamics
to both unique and
of the world we live in today.
shared experiences
That’s what reading has made possible
for me. Reading stories—both fictional and
and to other points
real—has made me wiser. Because I have
of view.
read Anne Frank’s diary, I have a deeper
understanding of what is happening today
in Syria. Because I have read 1984, I am less
susceptible to the language manipulation
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and propaganda found in advertising and politics. Because I have read All
Quiet on the Western Front, I have a greater empathy for the men and women
serving our country. Because I have read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to
Freedom, I have a deeper understanding of oppression.
Stories help me make connections to both unique and shared
experiences and to other points of view. They help me gather insight to
the nuances and subtleties of the world. This is why I became an English
teacher—because reading stories can play a central role in building
meaningful lives. I want my students to make these same connections,
to read and to understand the world at a deeper level, and to develop
empathy. I want reading to give their lives context. In short, I want reading
to make possible for them what it has made possible for me.
•••••
Kelly Gallagher is in his 30th year as a high school teacher in Anaheim, California, and is president of the
Secondary Reading Group of the International Reading Association. He is the author of numerous books for
teachers including Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It and his latest book,
Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts. Gallagher can be reached at
kellygallagher.org or on Twitter @KellyGToGo.
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Farin Houk
Fundamental Truths
t 15, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by the brilliant Colombian
master Gabriel García Márquez. Although great stories always change
us as human beings, this book was different. It’s as if this story somehow
bonded to the cells of my body, altering my life and my path in ways
that were only beginning to be revealed, slowly,
undeniably, and fundamentally.
As it did for millions of readers around the
world, the story captured my imagination and drew
me into a mystical world where tiny yellow flowers
rain down from the sky and a child is born with
the tail of a pig. As captivated as I was reading the
English translation, I made a vow then and there to
read the story in its original language. I began what
has become a lifelong journey to learn the language of Cien Años de Soledad,
and to understand the psyche from which it was born.
When the book Cien Años de Soledad and I finally came together,
many, many years later, we were both different. I was a mother of three
young bilingual children, I lived between two cultures, and the world
was a much more nuanced and complicated place. Maybe because I was
reading it in the original language, maybe because I had lived, loved,
suffered, and grown so much in the intervening decades, maybe the
original seeds had just matured; in any case, it was a different story, I was a
different person, and the connection I felt to the story was more intimate
and intense than ever.
Rather than simply whirling through the fantastic landscape of
Macondo and the Buendías, this later reading illuminated more about
the nature of our relationships with the world, with each other, and most
importantly with ourselves. As I turned each page, what became clearer,
in pure García Márquez fashion, was the lack of clarity. The essence of
this masterpiece was the rejection of binary thinking, the ability of two
seemingly opposite realities to exist together in one space, in one family,
in one self. Past and future, nobility and humility, science and the divine,
memory and amnesia, love and conflict, fantasy and realism, all co-exist
easily within the pages of García Márquez’s novel. Indeed, by embracing the
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presence of seemingly exclusive realities, a new reality emerges. It is Cien
Años de Soledad. It is my own life.
In a world that exacts allegiances, we are
trained to believe in absolutes. We love our
Great stories are
country or we’re traitors. We’re Republican
not only measured
or Democrat. We’re pro-life or anti-choice or
anti-woman or pro-abortion. We’re Caucasian
by how compelling
or Hispanic or Other. Except that we’re not.
the characters or
We’re complicated. We’re mysterious. We’re
magical. We’re real.
dilemmas are; the
Today, with my own children and with
true test is how they
my students, my work is to not only challenge
help us understand
this either-or thinking and the many ways we
are limited by it, but to absolutely relish our
our deepest selves
new, real lives “in the hyphen.” We are not just
and our relationship
English-speakers or Spanish-speakers, we are
to the world and
bilingual, and each of those realities informs
our lives in an irreplaceable way. We take
others around us.
care of our grandparents, and we create new
community on Facebook. We master codes of
power and access, and we connect our inner
voices through art and music. We learn about
history, and we speak our own truths.
Great stories are not only measured by how compelling the characters or
dilemmas are; the true test is how they help us understand our deepest selves
and our relationship to the world and others around us. One Hundred Years of
Solitude, through its meandering storyline and its intricate language, continues
to bring me back to the simplest, most fundamental truths of my life.
And by the way, I named my first son Gabriel.
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•••••
Farin Houk is the founder and head of Seattle Amistad School, a two-way dual-immersion school dedicated
to providing a bilingual, bicultural education to native Spanish and native English speakers. Houk has been a
teacher for almost 20 years, working in early childhood settings, Head Start, dual-immersion programs, and with
children of homeless families. She did graduate work in bilingual/bicultural studies at Pacific Oaks College NW,
and is a graduate of the Danforth Educational Leadership Program for Education Administration at the University
of Washington. She is also the author of Supporting English Language Learners: A Guide for Teachers and
Administrators. Houk lives in Seattle with her three beautiful, bilingual, bicultural children.
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Christopher Lehman
Reading Is Dumb. There, I Said It.
cross my middle and high school years, I learned an important fact of life:
reading is a dumb waste of time. Who gives half a darn what Tom Sawyer
did with the fence. I’d rather be kissing girls.
While Treasure Island sounded like we would finally be getting somewhere,
I found no treasure, barely understood the island, and,
as previously mentioned, was busy thinking about the
girls I’d rather be kissing (many of whom would have
been completely creeped out if they had known how
often during English class I pictured that happening).
Here are reasons reading is dumb in case you didn’t
already know:
Reason 1: You do it alone. No girls. Not even friends.
Just you in your boring, dumb mind.
Reason 2: It doesn’t really matter what some character did. That character is not
real and never was. Whoop-dee-doo: Holden is depressed. Good for him. The him
that is not really him because he is NOT. REAL.
Reason 3: You don’t actually have to read anything because teachers lead class
discussions. Then, you can just find out what things in books are supposed to
mean. Dumb . . . Though, now that I say this, it is actually only partially dumb
because it does save more time for the aforementioned thinking-of-kissingof-girls. So half dumb, half cool.
Reason 4: (and shhhh, don’t tell) If you don’t read all of those books your class
is assigned, guess what? You still can go to college! And guess what else? You
still can be successful! Really. I did it. I barely read Animal Farm or A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and I was still accepted. In fact, I graduated, and
I’m writing this essay on a plane right now! I get to travel for my job! On
planes! How cool is that? Take THAT assigned chapters of Fahrenheit 451.
Now, there is one small disclaimer for the dumbness of reading that I
must point out: some girls. At one point in high school, a girl you are way
into is way into something. For her, it was Kurt Vonnegut. And that girl has
a real obsession with Cat’s Cradle. So, as you want to get to the kissing part,
you try to read the book and it barely makes sense but you read it anyway
and then try to talk to her about it. So fine.
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Then, in college, more women like more books.You find yourself
pretending to read poetry because your creative writing professor is super
attractive and you might, like me, find yourself rereading e. e. cummings and
Kim Addonizio over and over. Suddenly that “pretty how town / (with up
so floating many bells down)” makes total sense to you, it is your completely
totalitarian homogenizing college campus! You have to Break The Mold! So
fine, what happens in some books matters a little and might affect you sometimes.
Then, suddenly, you are an adult and you find friends, some of whom are
self-professed “readers.” At first, trying to fit in, you go to a bookstore and stare
blankly at the shelves. How DO you pick a book? How the heck do you go
about picking a book? Then you remember someone talking about The Grapes
of Wrath or The Solitude of Prime Numbers or The Hunger Games and you think,
“Jeez, a lot of books start with the word The.”
Right after that, you pick one of the many The books by yourself, without it
being assigned, because you feel closer to the people you care about when you
do.You want to read a book. I know it sounds strange, but you actually want to.
And yes, maybe one time, when you’re older and married to a beautiful
woman, she and you get upset with one another and huff into separate rooms.
You have nothing to do all locked up in there, so you pick up the book you
were reading and you find yourself on page one-hundred-and-whatever of The
Fault in Our Stars or three booklets into Building Stories and you watch those
made-up people doing made-up things that feel just like you. Only “you” on
the inside.You feel less alone. You understand yourself more.
You then pick your head up. Close that looking-inside-of-you book. Walk
over to the door. Turn the handle. Then go out to your beautiful wife to fix what
has come undone. You are actually compelled to be better because some dumb
book helped you see yourself more clearly. NOT reading is dumb. There, I said it.
•••••
Christopher Lehman is the author of books for teachers, including Falling in Love with Close Reading (with Kate
Roberts) and Energize Research Reading and Writing. Additionally, he is the founding director of the Educator
Collaborative, a think tank and educational consulting organization working to innovate the ways educators learn
together. Previously, he was a classroom teacher, literacy coach, and a senior staff developer at the Teachers
College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. While reading wasn’t always his thing in school, he
did love school. He holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, New York University, and Teachers
College, Columbia University. He writes all over the Internet for wide range of publications as well as at his blog,
ChristopherLehman.com. You will also find him on Twitter @iChrisLehman where he tweets too much about
zombies and teaching. Though not teaching zombies. An earlier version of this essay appeared on the Nerdy Book
Club blog and is adapted with permission.
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Dawn MacKeen
Baba’s Journals: Learning About My Family’s History
ur car was speeding down the hot asphalt road through eastern Syria.
On all sides, the desert stretched out flat and unwelcoming. Unsure of
my direction, I checked my grandfather’s journals, re-reading his words. Yes,
we were headed the right way. In this unfamiliar terrain, I’d be lost without
these pages, each one doubling as a map to this
region, and to his life. Now, a narrow river appeared,
playfully splashing some blue. The Khabur, I realized.
The driver slowed as I looked out at the banks where
my grandfather, whom we called “Baba,” had camped,
nearly a century earlier, beside thousands of other
Armenians, all starving, sleep-deprived, and terrified
of the armed guards nearby. Already, the caravan
before his had been massacred. I tried to picture his
facial expression, his fear.
Sweating in the backseat, I pored over this translation of his memoir,
double-checking the names of villages, like this one, Suwar, where he’d been
interned. In recent weeks, this had become my daily routine, as I retraced
his steps from his home outside modern-day Istanbul, across the country’s
interior, and into Syria, once all part of the Ottoman Empire, following his
deportation path. Through each region, I’d re-read what he’d written about
these places, not wanting to miss a single detail of how he had survived the
Armenian Genocide, the 20th century’s first holocaust, when some one
million others did not. This was a completely different reading experience
than I’d ever had before. I’d grown obsessive, my life orbiting around his
every sentence. In the past, reading had only transported me to different
places in my mind; now it had led me to cross an ocean and journey
thousands of miles so I could actually stand where he stood. There, miles
from the Iraq border, I burrowed in and read some more:
I, too, had lost hope of surviving, but I considered myself lucky—as strange
as that might sound—because from our family I would be the only victim.
My family had been left behind, while, every day, I witnessed thousands
perish with their entire families. “I will be sacrificed, but my family will
survive,” I would say to myself, and thus I was consoled.
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I could almost hear his soft, gentle voice, so matter-of-fact about his fate.
This was the man who smiled non-stop when I was child, the man whose knee
I remember clearly, because I was about that tall.
Though my mother could recite his trials by heart, she had trouble reading
her father’s own account. He’d penned it in Armenian, her first language, but
she never really learned the written script. But that didn’t stop her from trying:
for years, she’d carry loose papers, slowly translating his words into English
so she could share them with the world. He’d survived, he’d written, for this
purpose: “Being an eyewitness to those fiendish savageries, that satanic pogrom,
I vowed it as my duty to put to paper what I saw.”
I thought about that as we left Suwar
behind us, and kept driving. The terrain was
desolate and cracked, only periodically marked
with boxy, mud-colored homes. This was the
By now, after
most severe stretch of terrain I’d travelled so
spending so much
far during my two-month trip across Turkey
and Syria, a few years before the latter country
time with him, I
descended into civil war, and again became a
could anticipate
river of blood. I read onward:
We got on the road and walked until evening.
We stopped at a place.We were amazed that
there were no massacres. Let them massacre, so
we would be no more.We were still reconciled
with death. Ah, so sweet seemed to be dying!
his reaction to any
situation, his words
giving me the
biggest gift—the gift
of getting to know
My eyes welled up, though I’d read it
countless times before. Since my grandfather
my grandfather
died when I very young, he couldn’t tell
decades after
me about his difficult past face-to-face. And
my mother’s version, simplified for children,
his death.
somehow always felt like folklore. After a
relative translated his two journals into English,
I could finally read his story. I’ll never forget
the day, several years earlier, when I boarded
a cross-country flight to attend a friend’s
wedding, with a copy of the journal in hand.
As the cabin lights dimmed, I opened it up, and began to turn the
pages feverishly, my mouth agape. With each escape, I couldn’t believe the
endangered protagonist was my own grandfather. I started to shake, finally
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understanding what my mother was trying to tell me; how he’d lived
through the most trying times imaginable; how he’d personally witnessed so
many dead, he thought it numbered a million. Slowly, I realized the chain
reaction of his survival—I couldn’t believe my mom existed, that I existed,
my aunt and uncle, my cousins, my cousins’ children, my whole family. With
a heavy heart, he had relayed these stories to his daughter, but he had also
documented it for future generations to learn what had happened to him
and his people.
As I sat in the car in Syria, scrutinizing more passages, I had the sudden
sensation that he was sitting beside me, guiding us. I could almost see his
finger point to the places he wanted us to stop and look. Ahead loomed a
hill, a ghostly hill. On top sat a small Armenian Church, denoting a massacre
site. “Mrkada,” the sign read. This was where he tried to flee the sentries, but
had been spotted. I read some more, and became worried about him all over
again, though I knew what he’d do. By now, after spending so much time
with him, I could anticipate his reaction to any situation, his words giving
me the biggest gift—the gift of getting to know my grandfather decades
after his death.
•••••
Dawn MacKeen is a freelance reporter living in Southern California. She is the author of a forthcoming book
about her grandfather, which will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2015. Previously, she covered
health and social issues as a staff writer for Salon.com, Newsday, and Smart Money Magazine. Her articles
have also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Sunday Times Magazine (London), Elle, and the Los
Angeles Times.
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Claudia S. Dybdahl
& Paul C. Ongtooguk
From Norwich to Nome: Reading in America
orwich, Connecticut, 1950s . . . I was the best reader in first grade. The
school was housed in a white, wooden building at Four Corners and
my room was on the ground level with floor-to-ceiling rectangular windows
that pushed out to let in the sweet smell of lilacs. During reading, we would
take our books from our desks and Miss Dale would
stand in the front. She dutifully called on each child
to read aloud while the rest of us followed along. The
slower readers only got to read one sentence.
I sat at my desk in the back waiting for my turn.
Sometimes, as the anticipation built, my hands would
sweat. I listened to Martha stumbling through “jump
and play” and lingered in the images of Mother
and Father, Dick, Jane, and Sally. I was just like Jane.
Claudia S. Dybdahl
I was a middle child and had a sled, roller skates,
and ribbons in my hair. My mother wore dresses
when she cooked dinner. My father played catch
with us in the backyard when he came home from
work. We took car trips and we played guessing
games. Each school day I was swept into Jane’s life
and daydreamed about how I could live out her
adventures after school.
I peeked ahead to see how far we were from the
Paul C. Ongtooguk
end of the story. My turn was always the same. Miss
Dale would let out a small but distinguishably tired sigh and say, “Claudia, will
you finish the story for us?” I was the closer. The days when I could read two
or three pages were the best. My voice lifted the words from the page and
delivered them to the class with an ease that was tinged by a seriousness of
purpose. Miss Dale sometimes smiled.
Claudia went on to earn a Ph.D. in Reading Education.
Nome, Alaska, 1950s . . . I remember Spot. He was so clean. Dogs
in Nome were sled dogs that were kept chained outside and their coats
reflected conditions on the ground—rain, mud, or snow. Jane wore fancy
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dresses outdoors, Mother wore high heels, and Dick’s shirt was always neatly
pressed. The whole family looked scrubbed. I waited for them to wear
out their shoes in the dirt, or for the mosquitoes or a cold wind to drive
them inside but it never happened. It was like a reversal of circumstances
where the inside had been taken outside and things turned out to be in a
better order. One time Father and Dick went fishing. Father caught a big
fish and Dick caught a little fish and the story ended. I wanted to know
what happened to the fish—did they share them, freeze them, cook them,
go back for more? But instead Dick hopped on his clean, shiny bicycle.
My bike was coated with mud, and the spokes were broken and bent from
the rocks and gravel that were thrown up as I pedaled through streets and
in between houses. Something that I did not understand was unfolding
in these stories and I was on the wrong
side of the bubble. Dick and Jane held the
world in their hands and ran and played in
it at will. There were no uncertain rains.
I was looking at
I, on the other hand, had to learn how to
thousands of books
scan the horizon for opportunity as my
about Alaska Natives
world was unpredictable and the storms
could be fierce. I did not learn to read
and Eskimos. It was
in first grade or in second grade. I came
like coming around
late to reading and comic books were my
a bend and finding
teachers. My first sight words were Bam,
Bang, and Boom and the reverberations
an ocean that went
that were set off inside my head swept
all the way to the
me through a dusty set of Encyclopedia
Britannica. Zygote—fertilized beginning—
horizon that I
seemed right by the time I got to Z.
hadn’t even known
My years in junior high and high
was there.
school were heady times for Alaska
Natives. In Washington, D.C., the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act was being
negotiated. We were in the national
spotlight. At home, Alaska Natives were
taking charge of our health care system
and we began to imagine jobs beyond vocational training. Ambition
bubbled to the surface. I was pretty sure that what was happening was
important enough to be in books and that I would read about these things
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in high school. When nothing showed up, I finally asked a teacher when
I was going to learn about myself. “When are we going to show up in
the books?” The teacher explained that there were no books about Alaska
Natives because everything that Eskimos know is told but not written
down. I never questioned his statement of the fact.
After high school I ended up at the University of Washington and
Suzzallo Library, a neo-gothic structure of overwhelming beauty and size.
I hadn’t given up on my certainty that Alaska Natives would eventually be
written about, and one day I asked the librarian if she knew of any such
books. Surprisingly, she handed me a pencil with no eraser and some little
squares of paper and explained the rules for the non-circulating collections
of the library. I could look at the books in the stacks and write down the call
numbers. I would give the call numbers to another librarian and she would
bring the books to me. The books stayed in the library, but I could sit at a
table and take notes. By this time, I expected that there might be an arm’s
length of books and papers. I was eager, curious, and excited.
The next thing that I remember is sitting on the steps and trying
to breathe. The section that she led me to was as big as a house. I was
stunned. I was looking at thousands of books about Alaska Natives and
Eskimos. It was like coming around a bend and finding an ocean that went
all the way to the horizon that I hadn’t even known was there. Everything
was rescaled. The world was different. I was a lifetime behind. Why had
this been kept a secret?
•••••
Anchorage, Alaska, 2014 . . .
Claudia S. Dybdahl is a professor of elementary education at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and is
currently serving as faculty in the Center for Research and Alaska Native Education. She has dedicated her career
to working with students and teachers to improve reading instruction in our schools.
Paul C. Ongtooguk is an assistant professor at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and is currently serving as
the director of the Center for Research and Alaska Native Education. He has dedicated his career to transforming
educational opportunities for Alaska Native students.
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Marcelle M. Haddix
The Year I Met Carrie White, Miss Celie,
and Ponyboy Curtis
W
hen I was in the fifth grade, my dad was laid off from his job,
and as my family began to struggle financially, we lost our first
home. It was a modest home nestled in a residential area of Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. I have memories of running with the
other neighborhood kids, capturing bugs and
worms, and playing make believe with my dolls
and action figures. In this home, my imagination
grew. Suddenly, I had to leave all of that behind.
We moved to the second-floor apartment above
my grandmother’s daycare center. The daycare was
located in the inner city on Martin Luther King
Drive, sandwiched between a church, a community center, the post office,
and a corner store. While it was the heart of the black community, its
hustle and bustle city life did not mirror the residential environment to
which I had grown attached. Being displaced from my childhood home at
the beginning of my adolescent years was a traumatic experience for me.
Already a fairly introverted child, this transition forced me further into
isolation. I spent long hours alone; I no longer wanted to go outside and
explore the neighborhood around me. My life was spent being shuffled
from school to church to our upstairs apartment.
At the time, I attended an inner-city Catholic school. In seventh grade,
we had a young teacher who made the practice of reading central to her
classroom. Not only did she introduce the class to young adult texts that
piqued our interest, but she also encouraged us to bring in other books
to read during our independent reading time. One of the first books she
had us read was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Now, why would the lives
of a group of white teenage boys in a gang in the 1960s resonate with a
classroom of mostly black, Puerto Rican, and Italian kids from the inner
city in the 1980s? But they did resonate—I felt like Ponyboy Curtis was
one of us. And, like him, I understood what it meant to be displaced from
one’s home and to cultivate community in unknown places. During a
time when I felt like an outsider, the characters I met in the books I read
affirmed my existence.
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I began reading ferociously, building my community with characters
like Alice Walker’s Miss Celie and Stephen King’s Carrie White. Because
of characters such as Ponyboy Curtis, Miss Celie, and Carrie White, I
acquired an eclectic taste for reading books. All different yet the same,
these characters demonstrated courage and
confidence that came from places of fear. That
year, I began leaving our upstairs apartment
During a time when
and exploring my new neighborhood. Almost
daily, I walked to the local library which was
I felt like an outsider,
just three blocks away. I got lost in the stacks
the characters
and engrossed myself in the lives of characters
I met in the books
both different from and the same as me. This
moment in my life confirmed the power
I read affirmed
of great stories with unfamiliar yet relatable
my existence.
characters and informs my practice of making
sure my students today read literature that
represents diverse stories and experiences. Such
encounters with diverse texts and characters
can open up a world of new possibilities.
•••••
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Marcelle M. Haddix is the Dean’s associate professor and program director of English education at the Syracuse
University School of Education. She directs the Writing Our Lives project, a program geared toward supporting
the writing practices of urban youth within and beyond school contexts. Haddix’s scholarly work is featured in
Research in the Teaching of English, English Education, Linguistics and Education, and the Journal of Adolescent
and Adult Literacy. Her awards and recognitions include the American Educational Research Association Division
K Early Career Award; the National Council for Teachers of English Promising Researcher Award; and the Syracuse
University Meredith Teaching Award.
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Anna Sumida
Solving a Mystery
y heart’s desire was to have golden blond curls and to look like Jane
from the Dick and Jane books. As early as first grade, I knew that I
did not want to have small, slanted eyes, straight black hair, and a razor-edged
line of bangs running horizontally across my forehead. Even though I looked
like the pictures of Japanese children I saw in my
afterschool program’s Japanese-language chomen (readers),
I didn’t want to look or act Japanese. I wanted to look
“American.” Born in Hawaii, a Japanese-American, I
never saw myself in school or library books.
Contributing to my desired identity were the
images I was bombarded with on TV. Every day I
watched episodes of Leave it to Beaver as my mother
cooked dinner. I distinctly remember wishing Mom
Anna at age 12
would dress like Mrs. Cleaver. Beaver’s mom seemed
the “perfect” housewife with waisted dresses, flared skirts, and matching belts.
My mom wore faded shorts. Beaver’s family ate off dinner plates. I ate from a
chawan (rice bowl). They used forks and knives. I used chopsticks. The books
and media I was exposed to consistently made me feel alien.
But then one day in first grade, a book rocked my world. A tall, skinny
picture book in the children’s section of the library piqued my curiosity
because the title was a question. Something like How Big Is Big? The book
progressively took me on a journey from objects I thought were big, beyond
trees, to the sun, and eventually into the universe—unimaginably BIG—then
suddenly the book reversed in the opposite direction; objects got smaller
and smaller until they were unseeable—electrons and neutrons of an atom!
Chills ran up my spine. There were things bigger than I could ever know and
smaller than I could ever see? I wanted more. Instinctively, I gravitated towards
nonfiction to unlock a way of knowing that invigorated my soul.
One weekend, a door-to-door salesman knocked at our home selling The
World Book Encyclopedia. My parents hemmed and hawed. It was expensive. But
somehow they found a way to purchase it. Too young to read it at the time, I
noticed Mom occasionally used the encyclopedia for answers to questions my
brother, sister, and I asked. She pointed to black-and-white photos or diagrams
and constantly looked up words in a paperback dictionary to explain further.
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Books and words satisfied my curiosity but still, why did I feel like I didn’t have
a place in the books read at school? Was I abnormal? I was uncomfortable in my
own skin, feeling displaced and inferior.
I didn’t realize it as a child, but the predominance of Japanese spoken at
home underexposed me to English vocabulary. My grandparents only spoke
Japanese—arriving on a ship from Japan circa 1910 as immigrants to work
on Hawaii’s sugar plantations. Since my family lived with them, my parents
frequently conversed in Japanese. Was this why fiction was difficult for me?
Our next-door neighbor was Caucasian. When she spoke, she sounded
intelligent. Why couldn’t my parents speak like her? Why couldn’t I speak like her
children? Her five children retold, in vivid detail, every Nancy Drew and Hardy
Boys mystery, tracking the numbered series. Their favorite album was The Sound
of Music and they belted out the songs like they
were part of a mini-Broadway show. Books
they read at home and from the library were all
I gravitated towards
about Euro-American children and families that
nonfiction to unlock
looked like them. I felt invisible in books.
Fortunately, my affinity for nonfiction
a way of knowing
continued and allowed me to peel away
that invigorated
invisible layers to uncover my confused sense of
identity. As a Japanese-American growing up in
my soul.
the 50s and 60s, I subconsciously negated my
identity and marginalized myself to dominant
Euro-American culture as seen through school
curricula, mainstream literature, and mass media.
I began to find myself through nonfiction.
Nonfiction continues to nurture my wonderings and point my internal
compass towards a better understanding of my identity. Nonfiction helps to
calibrate my sense of agency in a complex world.
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•••••
Anna Sumida received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Hawaii with a focus
on critical theory and cultural studies. With a passion for social justice and educating children to be agents of
change, she has served Native Hawaiian children and families through the campus and community programs
of Kamehameha Schools for 29 years. Given the Excellence in Teaching Award by the Hawaii Council of Teachers
of English, she also produced an award-winning educational film for parents on early literacy; published articles
in Language Arts as well as other educational journals; and co-authored Elevating Expectations: A New Take on
Accountability, Achievement, and Evaluation. She is currently co-authoring Arting, Writing, and Culture: Teaching
to the 4th Power.
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Barry Lane
A Poem Is Not a Pepsi
f I told you that I communed regularly with people who lived 400 years
ago, you would not believe me. If I confided to you that there were
imaginary humans who never breathed a single breath but were as alive to
me as friends I know and love, you would think me a lunatic. If I pointed to
some marks on white paper and said to you I could
stare at them and through this process meditate with
the mind of the person who made them, you might
think I was a member of some cult religion.
But I can do all these things because I am a reader.
I did not always possess these magical powers. I
grew up in the land of shadows deep in the cave, staring
for hours at the flickering images on the box. I watched
shows and absorbed the light and darkness. In between
sales jingles that still rattle around in my head many years later, I sat in silence,
drawing in the stories. At the end of the night, I turned off the light.
Looking back, I still remember those empty moments as a child when
the box went mute. I was left with very
little because I never really participated in
the stories I watched—I was a spectator.
A poem is not
My television fed me visions, but I never
created my own until I became a reader.
something we
It is hard to tell the exact moment I
consume, but in
attained these magical powers, but it was
long past childhood. I remember reading
some mysterious
the philosophical novel Siddhartha by
way it consumes
Herman Hesse during my freshman year
of college and not wanting the book to
us and from this
end, absorbing with awe the “Dialogues
process something
of Plato” (how could something so
ancient feel so contemporary?), falling
new is born.
into short stories by Guy de Maupassant
and O. Henry, and relishing those
surprising last moments where a plot
twists and you see another side of the
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108
character you thought you knew. And then one day I stumbled upon Rainer
Maria Rilke’s “Fourth Duino Elegy” and gasped when I read:
Who shows a child who he is, who sets him in his place among the
stars and puts the measure of distance in his hand, who makes the
child’s death out of gray bread and leaves it there in his mouth like the
core of a lovely apple. Murderers are not hard to understand, but this,
that one can contain the whole of death, even before life has begun, can
hold it in one’s heart gently, and not be angry, this is indescribable.
Reading this passage for the first time I remember thinking, “I don’t
really have a clue what it means, but it is so true, so utterly human.” It
seemed to reach past my mind to something more elemental and eternal at
the core.
My friend Charles Boyer introduces literary analysis to his college students
with a tagline I love: “A poem is not a Pepsi.” A poem is not something we
consume, but in some mysterious way it consumes us and from this process
something new is born. Call it comprehension. Call it wisdom. Call it hope.
Reading is not a skill; it is a miracle.
•••••
Barry Lane lives in Vermont and has written many professional books including But How Do You Teach Writing?,
After The End, Revisers Toolbox, and 51 Wacky We-Search Reports. His latest project, co-authored with Colleen
Mestdagh, teaches kindness to children through original songs and lessons. It is called Force Field for Good. You
can find more information about Lane’s work at www.discoverwriting.com.
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Michael W. Smith
The Great-Heartedness of Books
’ve lived in Philadelphia for 22 years now and have been in the same
book club for 21 of them. I was the host of our last meeting. My
book choice: Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. It’s
always a bit nerve-wracking to pick a book for my club. For the last 20
years, I’ve endured teasing about a book I chose
that no one liked except me. But this time I had
hit a home run. Marra’s book is set during the
Chechnyan wars. It tells the story of a group of
people who struggle to survive under horrifyingly
destructive conditions.
I’m a little ashamed to say that I didn’t know
anything about the Chechnyan wars. I hadn’t
followed the news. But even if I had, I couldn’t
have fully comprehended what it means to live in such dire circumstances.
After reading Marra’s book, I think I have a much better understanding of
the horrific challenges even though I know that my reading experience
obviously pales in comparison to the experiences of those who lived
through the horrors that Marra chronicles.
Nevertheless, reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena opened up my
world: I got to see ordinary people, flawed like me, face those horrors with
dignity and courage. I was privileged to observe them reach out to others
with small gestures of kindness that allowed them to keep their humanity
against all odds. After we had discussed Marra’s book and club members were leaving,
one of them grabbed my forearm and squeezed. “Thank you for this,”
she said. “It has changed my life.” Mine too, I think. I hope I have learned
enough to act with grace and kindness when I face the relatively minor
struggles of my life. This is just a recent example of what’s been an ongoing life theme. I
think back to my adolescence when my dad, an inveterate reader
himself, shared with me the book he had just finished: Claude Brown’s
Manchild in the Promised Land, the story of Brown’s coming of age in
Harlem. “Read this,” he said. “It’s something you should know about.” So
I did. And the walls of our all-white suburb in which I grew up came
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down, at least a little. Now, as a father and husband myself, my own family
is multi-racial. I don’t know whether it would have been if my dad’s book
hadn’t sent me down a new path. I think back to the time when I had just finished Hermann Hesse’s
Siddhartha and ran weeping to my girlfriend’s house to try to explain to
her what had happened to me as I read of Siddhartha’s spiritual journey.
I didn’t know exactly what had happened to me—still don’t, I guess. But
something had.
I think back to the time I read Jumpa
Lahiri’s amazingly wise story Unaccustomed
Earth and how it made me resolve to bring
The great-heartedness
her great-heartedness to my relationships
of books is an enduring
with my own friends and family. I’m not
sure how I’m doing, but I do know she’s
gift. Every time I open a
helping me try.
new one I know there’s
My friend Jeff Wilhelm and I recently
finished a research study of why kids read
a real chance that it will
what they read outside school: Reading
change my life.
Unbound: Why Kids Need to Read What They
Want—and Why We Should Let Them. Our
most important finding is that the kids we
studied read books to help them navigate
their lives’ journeys.
Michelle explains:
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You can look to books, I think, and characters for their influences . . .You
can look at oh, so I made a mistake like that so that could be why they
reacted that way and realized also how the characters reacted in real life,
you know? Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. And you can reference your
own experiences off of books. And you can kind of “Yeah, so I shouldn’t
do that again because the character also found that very offensive.” Kind of
like a cautionary buddy.
Helen chimes in:
Sometimes when, like, big stuff happens in my life, I’ll think about what
my favorite character would have done, the ones I admire most. And then
sometimes I follow their example and sometimes I don’t . . .They all
have different approaches, different ways they approach things, and then
I try to apply that to my life, to see which way works for me. Characters
are just ways of thinking, really.
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Throughout my life, books have provided me with many “cautionary
buddies” and new ways of thinking. Books have helped me discover
alternative perspectives and once unimagined options. The greatheartedness of books is an enduring gift. Every time I open a new one I
know there’s a real chance that it will change my life.
•••••
Michael W. Smith is associate dean for Faculty Development and Academic Affairs in Temple University’s
College of Education and chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning. He joined the ranks of college
instructors after 11 years of teaching high school English. He has won awards for his teaching at both the
high school and college levels. His research focuses on how experienced readers read and talk about texts as
well as what motivates adolescents’ reading and writing both in and out of school. He’s shared that research
and the instructional ideas that derive from it in 14 books and over 60 articles and chapters. When he’s not
working, Smith is likely to be watching or talking about sports, reading, or playing with his granddaughter.
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Communion
An old tree had sprouted branches that,
growing straight up, resembled a green harp.
There I could hide in communion with my
dearest friends—a tree and a book.
~ Alma Flor Ada
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Alma Flor Ada
My Communion With Books
he fascination began with words. The old ballads my mother sang as
lullabies excited my imagination:
Las mañanas de San Juan O
n the morning of the Feast
of St. John
se levanta el Conde-Niño the Child-Count wakes up
a dar agua a su caballo
and gives his horse water
a la orillita del mar.
at the sea shore.
Even though I lived inland I knew the joys of being
by the sea. I imagined the fresh breeze filled with the
smell of seaweed and the salty taste on my lips, giving
water to a horse in the early morning. The fact that I
could anticipate the romance between the count and the
young princess just made my anticipation at hearing my
mother’s ballad a greater pleasure each time.
The words were Cuban writer’s José Martí’s verses sung by my grandmother
to her own made-up tune:
Quiero a la sombra de un ala
contarte este cuento en flor
la niña de Guatemala
la que se murió de amor.
Under the shade of a wing
I’ll tell you this story in full bloom
of the girl of Guatemala
the girl who died for love.
What magical images those verses evoke. In my tropical island, shade was
always welcome, but to imagine sitting under the subtle shade of a wing, to listen
to a story in bloom, provoked an indescribable joy in me. What kind of illness was
love that would cause the death of a girl in Guatemala? How could the poet ever
forget this girl who loved him so dearly?
By the age of three, my grandmother had taught me to read. Combining
her love for books with her love for the earth, she traced for me in the dirt the
names of animals and plants we saw on our outings through our old farm. For
each new letter there was a story. The v in vaca had the shape of the horns of
the cow they milked to offer us a glass of fresh milk; the b in burro resembled the
donkey’s long ears. I don’t remember all the stories, but even today I can feel the
warmth of the sun on our faces as she traced the word rosa, and showed me how
the r, in her old-fashioned handwriting, looked like the wall of a garden, and
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the little lop on top was the rose that had climbed the wall to see the marvels
of the world. Looking up to our own garden’s walls, and hearing the wonder in
my grandmother’s voice, I felt this letter held both the fragrances around us and
the promises to come. Yes, the name Rosalma, chosen many years later for my
daughter, in the rose garden of Saint Rose of Lima, was the blooming of that
seed of wonder planted when I first learned the letter r.
Learning to read was followed by the magic of the first book my mother
gave me, her own long saved copy of Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, a bit of magic to be
followed by many more.
I discovered the perfect place for reading: an old tree, felled by a storm, had
refused to die and had sprouted branches, that, growing straight up, resembled a
green harp. There I could hide in communion with my dearest friends—a tree
and a book. From that tree trunk I sailed the straits of Malaysia with Emilio
Salgari’s Sandokan, seeing the brave prince fight the invading British forces; I
trembled with fear and hope in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island; and
laughed with the mischief and misadventures of Richmal Crompton’s Just William.
While I enjoyed the new worlds that books opened, the most extraordinary
feeling they provoked was that they had been written only for me. How special
they made me feel, how well understood. It did not matter that there could
not be two more dissimilar landscapes than our Cuban farm and the Swiss
Alps. The wind swishing through our bamboo grove by the river was the
same wind Heidi heard swishing through the pine trees, and while she visited
Pedro’s blind grandmother, I had my own blind
great-grandmother I rushed to from my outings.
Above all, I understood Heidi’s love for her
Books remind me,
surroundings—it was my love for mine.
each day, to never
And the more I read and reread Louisa May
Alcott’s books, the clearer it became that she
forfeit my dreams.
could not have been writing for anyone but me.
And could Sarah’s misfortunes and her resilience,
that I read and reread in Frances Hodgson
Burnett’s A Little Princess be anything but a call to
my soul? Of course I knew other people had read
these books, and continued to do so, but nothing changed the feeling that they
had been written uniquely for me.
What might sound like a preposterous childish idea at first is actually an
extraordinary insight. Contrary to what proponents of standardized testing would
have us believe, each book has been written exclusively for each individual
reader and gets re-written as it is read.
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115
Because—to be meaningful—reading must be a dialogue. It is only when the
reader encounters the text with a full range of feelings, emotions, and experiences
and compares them with those proposed by the author that true reading begins.
And it is only as the reader recognizes the ideas in the text, or is surprised by
them, that reading becomes enriching and reaches its potential.
What motivated such conflicting opinions about Heidi by the people
around her? What did each one want from her or for her? What could Jo
March have done to curb her temper? Why was it important that she continued
to harbor her dreams? Silent questions such as these led me to a profound
observation of the people around me and to a better understanding of their
motivations. I am moved to ask: What if something would have been different?
What other possibilities are there? Who has been left out? Who will reap the
benefits? What will be the consequences? Who will be affected by them?
Books inspired and continue to inspire me to be a kinder, more caring,
courageous, and supportive human being. They move me to ask myself how
I can contribute to make social realities more equitable, more inclusive, more
responsible . . . what can I do to help create a just society, the only road to
enduring peace? Books remind me, each day, to never forfeit my dreams.
•••••
Alma Flor Ada, professor emerita at the University of San Francisco, has devoted her life to advocacy for peace by
promoting a pedagogy oriented to personal realization and social justice. A former Radcliffe Scholar at Harvard
University and a Fulbright Research Scholar, she is an internationally renowned speaker. Dr. Ada’s professional
books for educators include A Magical Encounter: Latino Children’s Literature in the Classroom and Authors in the
Classroom: A Transformative Education Process, co-authored with F. Isabel Campoy, about their work promoting
authorship in students, teachers, and parents. Dr. Ada’s numerous children’s books of poetry, narrative, folklore
and nonfiction have received many prestigious awards such as the Christopher Medal (The Gold Coin), Pura Belpré
Medal (Under the Royal Palms), Once Upon a World (Gathering the Sun), Parents’ Choice Honor (Dear Peter Rabbit),
NCSS and CBC Notable Books (My Name is María Isabel), and the Marta Salotti Gold Medal (Encaje de piedra). In
2012, she received the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award in recognition of her body of work for children. Dr. Ada
is also the author of a book of memoirs, Vivir en dos idiomas, and two novels for adults, En clave de sol and A
pesar del amor. She has been awarded the Distinguished Professor Award at the University of San Francisco, the
American Education Research Association (AERA) Hispanic Issues Award for Research in Elementary, Secondary, and
Postsecondary Education; the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) Lifelong Award; the California
Council for Higher Education 2011 Award; the 2012 Literary Award of the American Association of Hispanics in
Higher Education; and the 2014 OHTLI Award from the Mexican Government “bestowed on renowned Latino leaders
who have distinguished themselves for the contributions to the advancement and empowerment of Mexican
communities abroad.” Dr. Ada has also established an endowment for the California Association for Bilingual
Education (CABE) to provide scholarships for future teachers.
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Carmen Agra Deedy
How Reading Changed My Life:
Owning the Written Word
M
y father was 14 years old when he learned to read. He was born in
1924, during the nascent years of the Cuban Depression. At age six
he attended a rural school long enough to conclude that the endless days and
stinging yardsticks were not his cup of café con leche.
After one particularly severe beating, he never returned.
As a newly emancipated six-year-old, he spent
his days plundering mango groves, chasing guinea
hens, and dozing on the warm rocks that lined the
riverbank. When he grew tired of these diversions,
he gathered pebbles in his pockets and used them
to pelt his erstwhile teacher during the unfortunate
man’s evening constitutional.
When his mother was presented with evidence of this hooliganism, as
well as her son’s chronic truancy, she accepted the news with the resignation
of a woman long defeated by poverty and fertility. Still, she declared that if he
refused to go to school, then he must work like everyone else.
By the time he was 14, one of my father’s tasks was the mile walk to the
town bakery to pick up bread from Antonio, the ill-tempered proprietor. After
this he did various farm chores; the remainder of the day was his to spend at
his pleasure.
Then, a serendipitous encounter with Prince Valiant changed the trajectory
of his young life.
It happened one morning when he entered the bakery to find the
irascible Antonio laughing as he read the syndicated comic strip in the local
newspaper. My father asked what was so funny, and in an act of uncharacteristic
benevolence, Antonio handed him the paper. My father was captivated by the
ink drawings but, how to make sense of the story? With only pictures for clues,
the characters were enigmas, about whose lives and exploits he could only
guess. He handed the paper back, bought his loaf of bread, and left.
But the images of fierce knights and fair ladies remained with him. He
had to know their story.
On the following morning, he lingered. When he was certain the last
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customer had left, he asked the baker if he would read the comic strips aloud
to him. The man shot him a questioning look; when it went unanswered,
Antonio shrugged, pulled up his stool, and began to read.
This tryst became a weekly affair, and might have simply ended one day—
as abruptly and unceremoniously as trysts often do––with one or the other
giving in to boredom or discontent.
Instead, my father arrived one morning to find Antonio in a fury; he had
scorched the day’s bread. When he spied my father, he snapped, “Don’t think
I’ll be making time to read to you today! You’re too damn old for it!”
Stung by the reproach, my father backed out of the door and ran to the
river, a place he could always find solace. He was too ashamed to go home,
too ashamed to tell anyone what had happened, too ashamed to do anything
but sit on the riverbank and sob and swear childish oaths. His misery soon
turned to resentment. He scrambled to his feet, wiped his nose, and scooped
up a handful of pebbles.
From the bakery door he could see Antonio asleep on his stool; arms
crossed, chin on his chest. Fresh-baked loaves of Cuban bread lined the
shelves. My father’s hand tightened around the pebbles.
“What do you want?” demanded Antonio,
jerking awake. Startled, my father stepped
back. “And why can’t you read? Didn’t your
mother send you to school?”
I wrestled with
“She tried,” said my father, “And leave my
words again and
mother out of it.”
again until, slowly,
Antonio didn’t respond immediately.
“Do you want to learn?” he asked, at last.
they became mine.
“Not if it’s going to turn me into an
angry jackass like you,” said my father.
“Very well then. As I see it, two paths lie
before you: you can either sit around and wait
for others to read to you at their whim, or
you can learn to read and never again be at the mercy of an angry jackass who
decides to stand between you and knowledge. Your decision.”
My father’s reply was to have generational repercussions.
“Teach me,” he whispered.
His fingers relaxed and the handful of pebbles clattered to the ground.
They began with Prince Valiant. Before long they graduated to the
obituaries. Classifieds followed, and then full-length articles. My father
became obsessed with words. Once all but invisible to him, he now saw
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them everywhere: painted on storefronts, splashed across the back of an
iodine bottle, printed on the head of a nail . . .
I asked him once how it was possible that he had not noticed words
before when they had been all around him. I was a young author then,
spending increasingly more time with poor, often marginally literate children.
I desperately wanted to understand.
“They were not mine,” he said quietly. “Just like new shoes and shiny toys,
I did not believe written words belonged to me.”
I felt a rush of blood that made my ears ring.
That was it.
That simple explanation would change the way I would talk to children
about reading from that day onward. I am a reader for many reasons––and
despite many more, including an assessment of dyslexia at age 28––but I
am the daughter of a voracious reader and an intellectually curious person.
Books and magazines and maps were ever-present in our home. I never
doubted that words belonged to me. And because I knew this, I persevered;
I wrestled with words again and again until, slowly, they became mine.
My father was 14 years old when he learned to read. It was a hunger that
could not be sated, and he passed on that same appetite for words and books
and stories to his daughters. We did our utmost to transfer that love to our
own daughters and sons. And they, in turn, have book-rich lives that they are
bequeathing their children.
And that is how reading changed my life.
•••••
Carmen Agra Deedy’s award-winning books include Martina the Beautiful Cockroach (Pura Belpré Honor Award,
E.B. White Book Award Nominee, ALA Odyssey Audio Honor Award), The Yellow Star (Christopher Award, Jane
Addams Peace Association Honor Award), The Cheshire Cheese Cat (Cybil Award for Middle Grade Readers), and
the New York Times bestseller, 14 Cows for America. She hosts the Emmy Award-winning Georgia children’s
program, Love That Book! Deedy has been a guest speaker at the TED Conference, the Library of Congress, and
the Smithsonian Institution. An avid supporter of libraries, she is an author advocate for the American Library
Association. Her forthcoming picture book is titled The Brave Little Rooster.
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bI
Roy Blount, Jr.
Still Learning
’m still learning to read, but here’s how I began: by looking at the page
as my mother read to me aloud. Especially formative, I believe, were the
stories of Uncle Remus—African American folktales recalled by 19th century
writer Joel Chandler Harris from his childhood on a plantation.
Harris was a forlorn little kid, a stutterer born out
of wedlock. These stories, both scary and avuncular,
had absorbed his rapt Irish-American attention.
As a still-stuttering and painfully shy adult, Harris
found ways to spell the tales he’d heard, to get them
down on paper. “By and by” he spelled “bimeby,” for
instance. Dialect. Hard to read today, and politically
embarrassing, but music to me then and now, like
the blues. Harris’s
adventurous, out-of-the-box spelling formed
my mind’s ear.
My mother also
My mama she done told me, “Sound
acquainted me
out the words.” Not just isolated words,
but words in the context of a story, in
with the dictionary,
the consistency of a literary voice, in
which sounded
the dialectic of cultural mingling, in
the cuddling urgency of my mother’s
out the words
complicated dreams. So words on a page are
officially, in the full
mother’s milk to me (a bottle baby).
But you can’t get all of English by
heterosymphonic,
written word of mouth. Got to learn to spell
crazily inconsistent,
correctly. My mother also acquainted me
with the dictionary, which sounded out the
and expanding
words officially, in the full heterosymphonic,
glory of
crazily inconsistent, and expanding glory
of American English. A good dictionary is
American English.
also music to me—sort of classical, but with
notes and chording derived from Latin, from
Yiddish, from Shoshone . . . I can never
remember how many r’s in “embarrassing.”
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Have to look it up every time. Embargo . . . embark . . . embarrass. One
dictionary traces it back to the Portuguese for “halter.” (Hmm. Am I the
only one who thinks here of “halter top”?) But better check that against
another dictionary . . . Nobody ever finishes learning to read.
•••••
Roy Blount, Jr., is the author of 23 books about everything from the first woman President of the United States
to what barnyard animals are thinking. His latest is Alphabetter Juice: The Joy of Text, now out in paperback
from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Before that was Hail, Hail Euphoria: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup,
Alphabet Juice, Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South (which won the 2007 nonfiction award from the
New England Independent Booksellers Association), and Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans (which
the New York Times called “a wild, unpredictable ramble through a wild, unpredictable town”). Blount is a panelist
on National Public Radio’s Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, ex-president of the Authors Guild, a member of PEN and
the Fellowship of Southern Authors, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, a Boston Public Library Literary Light,
a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary, and an original member of the Rock Bottom Remainders.
He comes from Decatur, Georgia, and lives in western Massachusetts. In 2009, he received the Thomas Wolfe
Award from the University of North Carolina.
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bA
Juan Felipe Herrera
ABC
“
hhh, Behhh, Cehhh,” I repeated out loud, ambling sideways through
the streets of Escondido, California, at the age of five, tuning my voice
to my mother’s as she read me the first three letters of the alphabet from
a late 1800s Spanish primer she had discovered at La Segunda, the local
second-hand store. It was like singing and almost
like storytelling with a harmonica—like the one my
father would jiggle in his hands making it flutter like
a dove, and then sparkle and sizzle like a tiny orchestra
of Texan accordionists as he paused and spoke about
catching a train, at 14, to El Norte, the USA, in 1896.
Letters and words and stories were all honey-coated
música to me—until I was spanked in first grade for
speaking in Spanish.
In third grade, in front of the class, after inviting me to sing (and after I
yanked myself up from my desk after three years of silence), Mrs. Sampson
said, “You have a beautiful voice.” Beautiful?
From that day forward, words and sentences and books, I discovered,
when read and recited, could heal a tender heart. Even though we moved
from barrio to barrio, reading became my place of rest, my garden. The
more I read out loud, the more I played with words and dreamed up stories.
Soon, I discovered that if I played softly, carefully, with words, I could write a
poem. And if I read the poem to others, for others, I could inspire them—this
became my life’s mission as a poet.
What is a poet’s garden? A poet is an intense reader who loves to read
the same sentence many times to catch the kind notes of each letter, like
the A that opens and flies by you like a flock of geese or the J that makes
you smile when you pronounce it. Yet, most of all, a poet deeply listens
while reading—to delight in the deep-inside stories and meanings. On rare
occasions, someone speaks up and reveals his or her innermost story. That is
when you write—write fast and slow and then go, writing until the poem is
born, blossoms, and glows.
My brother-in-law, Roberto, a Vietnam War veteran, was a moody man.
No one asked him why he was always so serious and jumpy. They knew it
had to do with what he had experienced in that terrible conflict. But, what
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was it, really? After years had passed since his return from Vietnam, we sat
down together and suddenly, he burst with his story. I scribbled it down
after I came home—a poem with his words. He read and read it, over and
over. Everyone in the family did. Even the Veterans of Foreign Wars local
hall wanted copies. They poured over it,
noticing its familiar volleys and voices about
life and death. Reading—whether a poem or a
personal remembrance or just one phrase, such
From that day
as, “You have a beautiful voice”—can put a
forward, words
broken human being back together again.
These days, as California’s Poet Laureate,
and sentences and
I amble through schools, libraries, and
books, I discovered,
community centers throughout California
inaugurating parks and new bridges rising
when read and
tall over emerald-colored bays. At strawberry
recited, could heal
farms I give away books, trading stories with
a tender heart.
families until the moon comes up. Hear me
call out the letters of the alphabet, like Mama
did—A is for All, B is for Beautiful and C is
for the new Challenge of this Century—to read
all voices, in all languages, about all peoples.
ABC—it is that easy.
•••••
b
Juan Felipe Herrera is an author of 29 books that include poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and young
adult novels. His most recent is Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes, published by Dial. A graduate of the
University of California in Los Angeles, Stanford University, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of
Iowa, he travels the country promoting reading, writing, and creativity encouraging everyone he meets to tell
their stories. He has garnered many awards, among them the Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, the National
Book Critic’s Circle Award, the PEN USA Award, the Josephine Miles PEN Oakland Award, and the Latino Hall of
Fame Award in Poetry. He is professor of creative writing at the University of California in Riverside. Appointed
by Governor Brown, Herrera is currently serving as California’s Poet Laureate.
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bI
Lily Wong Fillmore
On Learning the Language of Literature
grew up in a small California town at the foot of the Gabilan Mountains—
Steinbeck Country—so interests in language, culture, and literacy came
naturally to me. It wasn’t Steinbeck, however, who influenced me as much as
the people and the places Steinbeck wrote about. Many of the students at my
elementary school in the 1940s were, like myself,
learners of English as a second language. They were the
children of Mexican, Croatian, Portuguese, Filipino,
Chinese, and Japanese immigrants who worked on the
farms and orchards of the coastal valleys. We learned
English from one another and from the children of the
Dust Bowl migrants who fled the environmental disaster
that turned their farms and homes in Oklahoma,
Arkansas, and the Texas panhandle into a wasteland. To
a Chinese-speaking kid, anything that was not Chinese was English, and I was
an equal opportunity learner who picked up as many colorful invectives as my
classmates had to offer, from their home languages or from English (“nunnaya
beezwaks”,1 “kaiyatay-lavohka”2 and “bucka-dahdi”3 were favorites). In the spirit
of sharing, I taught them some equally useful expressions in Cantonese.
It is no wonder, then, that I would have taken an interest in language and
culture since everyone I knew was looking for common ground on which to
bridge our differences. School was where that could happen. The English I
learned from my classmates was great for schmoozing and for verbal self-defense
as needed, but it did not always satisfy other literacy contexts. Few of us had
parents read to us at home, so school was where we would learn the English
needed for reading, and the books we learned to read there would provide
opportunities for the linguistic upgrades we needed for reading pleasure.
Miss Sally Mayer was the teacher who introduced me to a literary world
beyond the one inhabited by Dick and Jane. Miss Mayer read real books to her
fifth-grade class—meaty, complicated books that took weeks, even months, to
read, at the rate of a half-hour’s worth each day, right after lunch. The books
she read were ones the students, especially those of us who were not yet fluent
1 “None of your beeswax,” = “Mind your own business,” or “bug out!”
2 “Cállate la boca” = “Shut your mouth,” or “shut up” in Spanish
3 “Bakatare” (pronounced bock-a-tah-dee) = colloquial Japanese for “stupid fool”
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enough in English or in reading, could not possibly have managed on our own.
The most memorable of these books, Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson, was
about a man who finds himself in a rainforest where he encounters a strange
girl who communicates in bird songs. Now, as I look at the text, it was a
wonder that our teacher thought we could follow it. Most teachers would have
judged it to be far too linguistically demanding even for native English-speakers
of our age. It was an enormous act of trust, both in her own ability to make the
story come alive for us, and in our ability to comprehend and appreciate it.
Green Mansions is a fantasy tale of adventure and romance. As a protected
Chinese child of the female persuasion, romance was a topic about which I had
considerable curiosity but zero knowledge and even less experience. Listening to
this story of danger, adventure, love, superstition, misunderstanding, and finally,
of tragic loss—the cry of anguish as Abel imagines the moment his beloved
Rima falls from the treetops and into the fire the Indians have set in the forest,
resonated with my 11-year-old soul. “O cruel nature!” I memorized this line,
thinking it a handy lament to have in my
own linguistic repertoire. I wanted to relive
the moments of the story, of the protagonist’s
How does one
awakening senses as he chases down the
mysterious bird girl and discovers the beauty of
learn the language
the natural environment. I wanted to find the
of literature that is
places in the text that described events I had
not fully understood when it was read aloud to
so different from
us, and read them for myself so I could discover
everyday spoken
what they meant.
I was first in line to check the book out
language except by
from the school library after Miss Mayer
reading books?
returned it. That book, in its rough pea-green
muslin binding, transported me to the Guyanese
jungle where, over the course of however long
it was in my possession, I read and reread the
passages, savoring the beautiful descriptions, and
reimagining the events. What I only partially
understood when Miss Mayer read it to us became vivid experiences as I
lingered over the text. The language that etched in my mind forever the sounds,
smells, and colors of the jungle became a part of my expectations of the kind of
vivid experiences one could find in books.
How does one learn the language of literature that is so different from
everyday spoken language except by reading books like this? From Green
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Mansions, I gained an appreciation for beautifully complex language—what is
called academic language these days—as I discovered that people in books did
not talk the way my friends and I talked to one another. Those who populated
stories such as Green Mansions were infinitely more formal, eloquent, polite, and
often downright verbose, especially when addressing objects of affection.
Rima, you are like all beautiful things in the wood—flower, and bird, and
butterfly, and green leaf, and frond, and little silky-haired monkey high up
in the trees.When I look at you I see them all—all and more, a thousand
times, for I see Rima herself.
The florid use of language in this over-the-top declaration of love was
poetry to my ears, and became a standard against which to judge the sincerity
of any such commendation I might receive from anyone in the future. My
taste in literature has evolved and changed since then, as has my admiration for
rhetorical flourishes in speech. What has endured is a fondness for the artful use
of language in written texts.
In my own efforts to improve language and literacy instruction for English
learners and for other language-minority students, I find it useful to reflect on my
own experiences as an English learner long ago, and to wonder what would have
happened had it not been for educators like Sally Mayer who trusted her students
to get something out of the beautiful literature she read to us, even if we didn’t
understand every word. I think about that especially when I hear people asking
where they can find literacy materials that are suitable for their students’ English
proficiency level. What I learned from Miss Mayer is that academic English is not
a prerequisite for reading difficult materials. It is, instead, an outcome—a result—
of reading them.
•••••
Lily Wong Fillmore, professor emerita, University of California at Berkeley, is a linguist (Ph.D. in Linguistics from
Stanford University) and an educator (volunteer teacher in farm labor camps, 1954–1964; member of Berkeley’s
Graduate School of Education faculty, 1974–2004). Much of her research, teaching, and writing have focused on
issues related to the education of language-minority students. She has conducted studies of second language
learners in school settings on Latino, Asian, American Indian, and Alaskan Native children. Since her retirement from
the Berkeley faculty in 2004, she has worked with educators in urban school districts to improve academic language
and literacy instruction for English learners and other language-minority students.
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bM
Marilyn Jager Adams
Dreams
y father said he would not send a girl to college. It would be a
foolish waste of money. But I was determined to go anyway. I knew
exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach math in urban schools: good
for the heart, and good for the mind.
Between programming computers and decent
typing skills, I earned my way through undergraduate
school. (Back then, state universities were sufficiently
affordable that a kid could really do that—a tragically
lost opportunity in today’s world.) I programmed
management rosters and statistics for the psychology
department, I wrote systems programs as a GE intern,
and I worked as a Kelly Girl whenever I had a few
days here or there.
Since money was so hard to come by, I was determined spend it well.
Planning to major in math and minor in education, I enrolled in the Arts &
Sciences honors program and signed up for the best courses I could find. As
a math major, I was required to take physics, and the university I attended
offered many options—physics for dummies, physics for regular people,
physics for medical students, physics for engineers, and physics for physics
majors. I chose to enroll in honors physics for physics majors. Alas, within
the first few weeks, my honors physics teacher pulled me aside. He told me
that he had never had a young lady in one of his classrooms and he didn’t
intend to start with me. Why was I there? He suggested that I major in
education and minor in math. He felt that would be more suitable.
I did earnestly try to want to major in education, but there were issues.
The biggest one was that the major carried an extremely heavy credit
requirement. By now, I was a sophomore. If I shifted to education, I would
never be able to finish my degree on time, and I would never be able to
take another non-education course of my choice.
I ended up majoring in psychology and minoring in mathematics.
Working with preschoolers, I did my honors thesis on the relationship
between syntactic development and logical competence. My plan was that,
when I finished, I would apply for the Teacher Corps. But, my mentors
in the psychology department strongly encouraged me to go to graduate
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school in psychology. Well. This seemed a totally radical proposition. So I
gave it a shot. I decided to apply only to schools that I knew I couldn’t get
into without help from providence. If my fairy godmother wanted me to go
to graduate school, I would. I ended up getting into all of the schools and
headed for Providence.
At Brown, my advisor’s specialty was attention (a topic that should be
required of all curriculum and software developers). Meanwhile, his best
buddy’s specialty was speech perception, forcing me to become thoroughly
versed in the science of phonemes. Then, as fate would have it, a fancy new
tachistoscope appeared, so I did my thesis on
visual word recognition.
When I finished graduate school, I was
Reading enriches
blessed with a job at Bolt, Beranek & Newman
our dreams even as
(aka “Where Wizards Stay Up Late”). BBN’s
MO was to prefer jobs that were deemed
it offers means for
impossible but worth it—if nobody tries, we
realizing them.
reasoned, they remain impossible. So try we
would, and through one quirky techie project
after another, I had a ball and learned a ton.
It is remarkable what can be accomplished
by a good team with serviceable tools and
dedication to a mission.Yet, all along, my fairy godmother kept pinging me,
kept reminding me of why she’d sent me to school. Among projects she
dropped on me were a computer program using animated graphics to provide
phonological feedback for deaf children, a diagnostic test of decoding abilities,
a “thinking skills” curriculum for barrio students in Venezuela, and, of course,
the Center for the Study of Reading.
I had not been at BBN long when the U.S. Department of Education
released an RFP for a multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Reading. We
teamed with colleagues at the University of Illinois and won the contract. It
was through the Center for the Study of Reading that I was appointed to write
Beginning to Read. At that point, I had been working with the Reading Center
for 10 years. Though I already knew a lot about a reading, what I knew turned
out to be neatly filed away in separate little mental buckets. Forcing everything
to fit in the same big bucket made all the difference, causing the intersections
between pieces —their mutual dependencies and synergies—to become visible.
What I was beginning to understand was not just the requirements of learning
to read but, more importantly, how reading helps us to develop, organize,
distinguish, and refine our knowledge and thought.
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What I’ve learned since then is that teaching reading to a classroom
full of kids is an incredibly difficult challenge—so difficult that, as
evidence attests, our schools may fail except with those kids who get
extra help at home. The problem is that, given its scope and intricacies
and its dependence on what the child brings to the table, learning to
read requires far more individual time and attention than one teacher can
offer to every student.
In other words, good classroom reading instruction is not an impossible
challenge. We are rich enough and we are smart enough—we can solve
this problem. And it’s worth it. Our children’s lives depend on it. Through
reading, we can see through each others’ eyes, feel through their hearts,
think through their minds, and learn through their lessons. Reading
enriches our dreams even as it offers means for realizing them.
•••••
Marilyn Jager Adams is a visiting scholar in the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Department at
Brown University. She is the author of several books including the landmark Beginning to Read: Thinking and
Learning about Print. She has also been active in the policy arena serving, for example, on NAEP’s Planning,
Steering, or Standing Committee for Reading since 1992 and on the Development Team for the Common Core
Standards in English Language Arts. She is currently a principal scientist for Scholastic’s new technologyenhanced programs, System 44 and iRead. Asked how she did with her own life aspirations, Adams responds,
“To contribute to education? The opportunities have been beyond my wildest dreams. Whatever I’ve
accomplished, I owe most of all to public education and to libraries. And to my fairy godmother.”
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bW
Timothy Rasinski
Fluent Reading: The Power of Rhythm and Music
e all have our own unique literacy journeys in life. Mine was upbeat.
I was an early reader—I started school already knowing how to read.
But I still recall reading with amazement Dolores Durkin’s seminal study
of children who started school knowing how to read. These children were
not exceptionally intelligent. What they had going
for them were parents who read to them every day.
As I considered this important finding, I could not
recall either of my parents reading aloud to me in the
traditional manner.
After reading Durkin’s work, I called my mother
and asked her why she never read to me (or my brother
or sister who were also early readers). She gave me an
earful and reminded me that when I started school as a
first grader, I was sent to the second-grade classroom for reading instruction
because I could already read. She pointed to a couple of significant events in
my early years.
My father was a musician who played on weekends in local clubs in Akron
and Cleveland. He would rehearse several days a week after coming home
from work in the factory. After taking a quick shower, he’d come downstairs,
get out his sax or clarinet, and would ask me and my brother and sister to join
him. My mother would pass out the lyrics, and as my father played, we all
sang along.
Back to my phone conversation, my mother asked: “Were you reading or
not?” I had never considered this reading, but as I reflect on it as an adult, I now
see that I was reading—for a purpose! And since my dad often rehearsed the
same songs week after week, we were repeatedly singing the same texts. Looking
back, I see that this was an early example of fluent, repeated reading.
My mother loved short rhythmical texts and quite often, after I had said
my prayers each evening, she would recite a poem, nursery rhyme, or song
for me, drawing from her songbook or anthology of poems. Early in the
week, she would read her poem and we would discuss it a bit. Then, as the
week wore on, she would ask me to recite the poem with her. By the end of
the week I would often read the poem to her on my own. Moreover, since
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she had the actual text with her as we read, I was able to match the words
I was reciting with the words on the page. I was reading! We did this little
routine quite often and I am convinced that this, along with my father’s song
rehearsals, was how I learned to read.
It’s interesting to note that many of the
instructional methods that I advocate for young
Those who work to
readers today are based on my own experiences
help children become
at home as an early reader.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout delivers one
fluent and joyful
of my favorite quotes: “Until I feared I would
readers are, in my
lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love
breathing.” When I contemplate all the ways in
opinion, doing the
which reading has made my life so meaningful,
same essential work
joyful, and enlightened, I am stunned and awed
as medical doctors
by its influence. I can’t imagine a life without
the ability to read and my heart breaks when I
who help their
think of all the children (and adults) for whom
patients breathe.
reading is such a painful struggle. Those who
work to help children become fluent and joyful
readers are, in my opinion, doing the same
essential work as medical doctors who help
their patients breathe.
•••••
b
Timothy Rasinski is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University and director of its award-winning reading
clinic. He has written over 200 articles and has authored, co-authored, or edited over 50 books or curriculum programs
on reading education. He is the author of the bestselling books on reading fluency, The Fluent Reader, now in its second
edition, and The Fluent Reader in Action. His scholarly interests include reading fluency and word study, reading in
the elementary and middle grades, and readers who struggle. His research on reading has been cited by the National
Reading Panel and has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading
Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Rasinski is the first author of the fluency chapter for Volume IV of
the Handbook of Reading Research. He served a three-year term on the board of directors of the International Reading
Association. He has also served as co-editor of The Reading Teacher, the world’s most widely read journal of literacy
education, and was co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research. Rasinski is past-president of the College Reading
Association and he has won the A. B. Herr and Laureate Awards from the College Reading Association for his scholarly
contributions to literacy education. In 2010, Rasinski was elected to the International Reading Hall of Fame. Prior to
coming to Kent State, he taught literacy education at the University of Georgia. He taught for several years as an
elementary and middle school teacher in Nebraska.
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bD
Meenoo Rami
Finding My Home in a New Language
o not bend. Handle with care.
Those are the first words that I began to decipher and understand in the
English language. As a 12-year-old Gujarati kid who was moving from India to
America, I had to adjust to many things at once. The most important: finding
my home in a new language. I come from a literary
home. As a young child, I grew up reading at my father’s
feet. He had a home library filled with thousands of
books and I would sneak in there and read for hours.
I don’t remember the particular books and I can no
longer read in Gujarati, but I know that I loved reading
and that I learned early on from my father about the
power of words to transport and transform us.
But what happens when the very things in which
you ground yourself and your reality become foreign? What happens when
you have to build your language life over again? What happens when you lose
your voice overnight? And what happens when you become silenced but you
have so much to say and so many questions? Sometimes, the right teacher or
guide comes your way and you’re never the same again.
You’re lucky if you find a teacher like Mrs. Cerwin, who taught
generations of kids like me at River Trails Middle School in Mt. Prospect,
Illinois. She, like many other amazing ESOL (English for Speakers of Other
Languages) teachers, put the right books in my hand at the right time. From
her, I discovered my love of the Boxcar Children series, Hatchet, and Bridge
to Terabithia. In her capable hands, I learned to find my way into a new
language home and, no matter how chaotic things were in my life, I was able
to return to what I always knew: how to find comfort in books, characters,
and faraway places. Through these reading experiences, I was able to make
a new home in a foreign place. When I connected with the language, it was
as if I had truly arrived. The pace of my word acquisition quickened; after
all, I had been a lifelong reader, I just needed help with the new English
vocabulary. I was already a believer in the power of words and wanted very
much to unlock this new language puzzle. Learning and mastering a new
language was like finally arriving at my destination and being able to put my
bags down, unpack, and settle in.
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What does reading make possible?
Voice: Reading gives us a voice when we feel as though we have none.
It empowers us, through the courage of others, to find our own voice.
When Atticus Finch stands up for Tom Robinson, we learn what it
means to have the courage to stand up for unpopular beliefs in our
community. Through our reading, we learn to see the ways in which
moral conundrums are worked out and we are able to try out our own
moral compass on situations based in other worlds, other realities.
Belonging: The right book can be a home for the reader. As C. S. Lewis
wrote, “We read to know that we’re not alone.” Books can show us
that our experiences, even our deepest and most personal ones, can
connect to others who have walked a similar path. Books can be both
windows and mirrors for us; we can discover new ways of seeing the
world. For some of us, books aren’t just an escape from reality; they
allow us to carve a space for ourselves in a
reality that can be less than kind at times.
Agency: Readers are also writers, designers,
and creators of our own experiences.
When we enter other worlds in books,
we are inspired to reimagine, recreate,
and reframe our realities. Words of
others inspire us to write our own. If we
can experience the power of stories to
transform us, then we can also imagine the
power to tell our own stories. More than
anything else, reading has the power to
remind us of our own power.
Through these
reading experiences,
I was able to make
a new home in a
foreign place.
b
My journey from an ESOL kid at River Trails Middle School to a
teacher of English at the Science Leadership Academy was only possible
because a teacher like Mrs. Cerwin helped me find my language home. For
that, I will forever be grateful.
•••••
Meenoo Rami teaches her students English at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. She is the author
of Thrive: Five Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching. The founder of #engchat, Rami has become a mentor
to teachers across the country and a sought-after speaker. You can reach her on Twitter @meenoorami or at
meenoorami.org.
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Ruth Culham
Cigarettes, Comic Books, and Reading
learned to read because my parents smoked. True story. When I was
little, it was pretty much a nightly routine that we would join my
grandparents for dinner and afterwards, the four adults would smoke up a
storm and talk for hours. Even then I hated smoking and couldn’t wait to
be excused and make my escape. The timing of my
exit was critical—at a precise moment between the
first and second cigarettes, I would gather my plate
and glass, and ask to be excused. If I asked too soon,
the answer would be “No.” If I waited too long, I’d
have to suffer one more round of smoking.
I always retreated to the bathroom. My
grandmother hid a stack of comic books for me
under the bathroom sink—hidden because she knew
my mother wouldn’t approve, making them all the more attractive to me.
I remember them well: Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Archie and Veronica, and
Atomic Mouse. She knew I’d be bored in
no time on my own, and since I was the
only child in the house and there was no
TV, she provided the contraband. I loved my
It was just me
grandmother for lots of reasons, but this one
was high on the list.
and comic books,
This happened when I was only three
paper, pencils, and
or four, at the most. I couldn’t read. All
I could do was look at the pictures and
crayons—plenty of
try to figure out what was going on. But
resources to learn
something magical happened during
those long evenings locked away in my
to read and write
grandmother’s bathroom . . . the words
for a motivated
started to make sense. By the time I reached
first grade, I was reading. Maybe not
six-year-old.
fluently or deeply, but I was reading. And
because my teachers didn’t know about
differentiation, they stuck me in a corner of
the classroom with books and left me alone.
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The gap between my peers and me widened, and by the end of first grade,
I could read almost anything. At the same time, I began writing. I learned
my letters from what I saw in books. I began with my name and moved
on to copy words, all this done quietly, on my own, in what might be the
first reading/writing center in the world: my grandparents’ bathroom.
It was just me and comic books, paper, pencils, and crayons—plenty of
resources to learn to read and write for a motivated six-year-old. This may
be the only good thing to come from smoking cigarettes—but I do thank
my grandmother for starting me on my way to a lifelong love of language
by letting me “read” comic books for as long as I wanted.
From the Introduction to Ruth Culham’s The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of Writing
(International Reading Association, 2014).
•••••
Ruth Culham is a recognized expert in teaching writing and the author of over 40 bestselling Scholastic and IRA
books and resources on the traits of writing and teaching writing using reading as a springboard to success. Her
practical yet motivational ideas for teaching writing make her a favorite among teachers. Culham’s steadfast
belief that every student is a writer is the hallmark of her work. As the author of Traits Writing: The Complete
Writing Program for Grades K–8 (2012), she has launched a writing revolution. Traits Writing is the culmination of
40 years of educational experience, research, practice, and passion.
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Lester L. Laminack
Finding the Magic of Reading
was an onlooker, a lusting voyeur.
I sat perched on the wide arm of that oversized chair looking over the
shoulder of my brother. He sat next to my mother, open book spread across
his lap. He was in first grade, I was going on five, and I was in awe. I watched
in amazement as my brother placed his finger under a
word and it spilled forth from his mouth, filling the air
with sounds.
I listened to the music of that rhythmic language—
I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs
and ham . . . One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish . . .
The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat
in the house all that cold, wet day.
It was that music that I carried with me around our upstairs apartment. I
walked about chanting, “I do not like them here or there. I do not like them
anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
I was an onlooker, an eavesdropper longing to join the magical club of
readers. I wanted to place my finger under a word just so, and have those
words spill forth from my mouth. I wanted to sit in the big chair next to my
mother with a book spread across my lap. I wanted to make the music that
was somehow trapped on the page waiting for the touch of a magic finger. I
wanted that finger to be mine.
I listened and watched every evening. I carried the music everywhere,
chanting the memorable language that continued to resonate long after.
I did, of course, hold the books and lick the tip of my index finger before
carefully turning each page. I did chant the music as I touched the words and I
did believe with the faith of childhood that I had found that magic.
Then I went to first grade. I met Dick and Jane. See Dick. See Jane. I met
Spot. Run, Spot. I met Sally. Oh, Sally! I met Puff. Get down, Puff. I sat in small
circles as we took turns telling everyone to “Look,” or “Get down” or “Run,
run, run.” We took turns saying those words, touching them with our fingers,
but the music was gone. There was no memorable language. Nothing would
resonate long after.
I did, of course, learn to read. As I recall, that was neither a remarkable
event nor a struggle. Just another occurrence in the journey called childhood.
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But somehow, the magic and the music had vanished. It wasn’t until third
grade when I finally heard the music again, it played on the slow-paced,
smooth, southern voice of Mrs. Hand, our school librarian.
It started with Uncle Remus tales and moved to weekly adventures with
Henry and Violet and Jesse and Benny as they struggled to survive in that
old boxcar with their adopted dog, Watch. I longed to be Henry, the brave
leader. I longed to dam up the stream and make a pool that doubled as the
refrigerator. I could taste the cold milk and feel the crack in Benny’s cherished
pink cup as I drank with him.
It was Mrs. Hand who revived the music I longed to hear. And I continued
to cherish the sound of it. Although I had the power to take hold of that sound
with my ear, I still could not echo it with my voice. That would take a few
more years.
In the fifth grade, my family moved to Key
West. It was supposed to be a short stay so we
I wanted to make
rented a furnished place. It had no TV. The
the music that was
weather was warm and pleasant even in the fall
evenings and filling the time outdoors with my
somehow trapped
brother and friends was no challenge. But the
on the page waiting
night, the dark and quiet night, was another
thing altogether. We played cards and board
for the touch of
games, but that grew old quickly. At my mother’s
a magic finger.
suggestion, I resorted to reading a book. We
bought a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
It took only a few pages before I was hearing
the music, the rhythm of the story, the voices of
the characters, and finding myself living among
Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow.
I had found it. And once you do, it is yours forever.
•••••
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Lester L. Laminack, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, where
he received two awards for excellence in teaching. Laminack is now a full-time writer and consultant working with
schools throughout the United States. His academic publications include Learning Under the Influence of Language
and Literature, Reading Aloud Across the Curriculum, Climb Inside a Poem, Cracking Open the Author’s Craft,
Unwrapping the Read Aloud, and Bullying Hurts: Teaching Kindness Through Read Aloud and Guided Conversations.
His newest professional book is The Writing Teacher’s Troubleshooting Guide. Laminack is also the author of six
children’s books: The Sunsets of Miss Olivia Wiggins, Trevor’s Wiggly-Wobbly Tooth, Saturdays and Tea Cakes, Jake’s
100th Day of School, Snow Day!, and Three Hens and a Peacock (2012 Children’s Choice K–2 Book of the Year Award).
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Maxie Moua
Navigating Through Literacy
n eighth grade, I was told that I was in a “guinea pig” class. Mrs. Clark,
a hardcore English teacher and grandma who often told us about her
motorcycle trips, was given a group of students on which to test her new
approach to Advanced Placement (AP) English. It was in Mrs. Clark’s class
that I became more serious about challenging myself.
In high school, I took all the honors and AP English
classes I could. Mrs. Clark became a mentor to me,
as did Ms. Norton, my eleventh- and twelfth-grade
English teacher, who encouraged me to join the
Writing Club. In 2012, I was the first HmongAmerican female student to enter the California Writes!
contest and my poetry submissions won the Silver Key
Award—which led to other writing. I drew a lot of
inspiration from my Hmong background.
My parents and two older sisters fled Lao Communists by crossing
the guarded Mekong River to Thailand and moved from refugee camp
to refugee camp. In 1985, with sponsorship from an American family in
Minnesota, my family was able to leave the Thai camps at last and come to
America, eventually settling in Fresno, California.
Although five of my siblings and I were born here, I was immersed
in both Hmong and English and learned English as a second language.
Watching children’s TV shows like Teletubbies or Power Rangers helped
my English, while getting chased by my siblings or scolded by my parents
influenced my understanding of the Hmong language. By the end of
Kindergarten, I was at a second-grade reading level so I was moved up,
but I soon discovered that I wasn’t prepared for a lot of the second-grade
coursework. However, I excelled in reading. I remember having so many
shiny stars under my name for reading that at the end of the school year, I
got to attend a carnival my elementary school held to reward the students
who read the most books.
I used to translate for my parents when they came to Open House or
school meetings. I was happy that I could help my parents—it made me feel
smart and responsible, but it was also challenging. Sometimes I would see my
dad hold a magnifying glass up to a piece of mail, trying to sound out a word.
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He would ask me what it meant, and I would try to break it down in Hmong
as best as I could, but he still looked confused. Or my mom would come into
my room and ask me to read a letter she had received, and I would respond in
broken Hmong.
It’s a common problem that the younger Hmong generations face in
America. My siblings and I struggle to transition from English to Hmong
because many English words are not easy to translate. Reading and speaking
English year after year has definitely built up my English literacy skills, but how
can I balance my Hmong literacy as well? One
summer in high school, I took a Hmong native
speaking class taught by Mr.Yang. Given my
My parents made
trials communicating in Hmong to my parents, I
me stay in school
enjoyed learning how to read and write Hmong
and committed to Hmong literacy just as I have
where I met
with English literacy.
teachers who have
I once wished that my parents could read
impacted both my
to me and tuck me into bed at night. I once
wished they could understand the poetry that
English and Hmong
I’ve written about our culture and our family.
literacy journeys.
But it wasn’t my parents’ fault that they were
refugees, and it wasn’t their fault that their
homelands suffered through war. My mother
and father pushed me in school and gave me the
chance to learn how to communicate in English
instead of marrying me off at a young age as is the tradition. My parents
made me stay in school where I met teachers who have impacted both my
English and Hmong literacy journeys.
I am Hmong-American, and literacy is my privilege.
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•••••
Maxie Moua was born and raised in Fresno, California. She is a Horatio Alger California Scholar and now attends
the University of California, Berkeley. Moua finds happiness when she doodles and creates handicrafts; she lives
to learn. She aspires to learn more about the Hmong language and to teach it. Moua loves her mom, dad, two
sisters, and five brothers very much and wants to thank them for their unconditional love.
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J. Richard Gentry
A Dyslexic Lover of Books Learns to Read
he first word I learned to read in school was “Dick,” a version of my
own name. That single word in large black type on the first page of my
first book appeared with Dick’s picture. He looked just like me: about my
size with sandy hair and blue eyes. Dick was decked out in a red sweater and
khaki shorts just like I loved to wear. On the next
two pages, I mastered, “Look, look,” followed by “Oh,
oh, oh,” and I really felt proud. A lot of people have
chided my first book but I cherished it. After all, it
was my first! I read about Dick and Jane, Baby, Spot,
and Puff, and I loved the characters—especially Puff.
To this day, an orange cat is my favorite pet.
How ironic that my mother, who taught me to
read in first grade, was also my first-grade teacher.
Ironic because more than 50 years later, I would be writing books for parents
of babies and toddlers and working to produce educational apps showing
parents how to be their child’s first reading teacher; and ironic because I caution
them not to wait until first grade. Natural reading begins in preschool. First
grade is much too late to learn to read in English if you are dyslexic like me.
The first signal that dyslexia would both sidetrack and enhance my
life with books occurred the same year I read Dick and Jane. A dyslexia
warning sign surfaced during my first-grade mid-year reading test. Already
conscious of my slow reading rate, I sped ahead, marking many sections of
the test before I was supposed to be doing them. I raced to get ahead so
that I would have more time for the longer reading sections that slowed me
down. I remember finishing the matching sections—sounds with words and
words with pictures—I aced them all even without hearing the instructions.
I matched pictures of three-car segments of trains—variations of a flat car,
a box car, and a caboose—that were somehow supposed to be analogous
to matching letter sequences in three-letter words. Train-car matching
was a riveting “reading” skill! The county elementary school supervisor
administering the high-stakes test scolded me for moving ahead through the
test booklet.
On that test day in first grade, the county supervisor hinted at the
unnamed dyslexia nemesis that would follow me for the rest of my life:
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“He will always be a good student,” she told my mom, “but he’ll have to
work hard at it.” Her prophesy would perfectly describe my life with books.
A dyslexic’s reading history can be as quirky as the required reorganization
of circuitry in the dyslexic reader’s brain. Here are some snippets of what
books mean to me:
• In first grade, the refrain “I think I can, I think I can” from The
Little Engine that Could coached me in optimism and hard work.
• In the middle grades, my independent reading ranged from Bible
stories to the Boy Scout manual. By eighth grade, I was one of the
youngest Eagle Scouts in America. Even though I later abandoned
my quest to become a preacher, I kept many of those values. These
days some have accused me of being a
preacher of literacy.
• I own a collection of antique spelling
books including an 1829 edition of
Noah Webster’s blue back speller, my
great grandfather’s speller from his oneroom schoolhouse (the same one my
grandmother used), the full set of the
horrible spellers I had in elementary school
that didn’t help me learn to spell at all, and
the spelling books I authored for America’s
schoolchildren up to the present day.
Books are so
personal to me that I
mark them all up with
notes to myself and
keep them forever.
b
• Books are so personal to me that I mark
them all up with notes to myself and keep them forever. Today I
re-read books that I first read 30 years ago and laugh at some of my
inscriptions. They make me think about all the life lessons I learned
from books. Books have helped me become who I am.
Dyslexia be gone. I can’t imagine life without books.
•••••
J. Richard Gentry, Ph.D., is a teacher, researcher, and author of influential journal articles, books, and policy
papers on reading, spelling, writing, dyslexia, and best practices in literacy education. He is breaking new
ground in baby/toddler reading. His recent books include Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child
to Read and Write—From Baby to Age 7 and Fostering Writing in Today’s Classroom, coauthored with educators
Jan McNeel and Vickie Wallace-Nesler. Dr. Gentry is the author of Spelling Connections, a spelling series for
Grades K–8 from Zane-Bloser. He blogs for Psychology Today.
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Adria F. Klein
On the Road: Talking My Way into Reading
remember reading inside my head at a very early age, but the words would
not come out of my mouth—at least not in a way I was willing to share. I had
difficulty pronouncing words so that others could understand me. My first-grade
teacher usually “forgot” to call on me. Even when the familiar text simply said,
“Look. Look, look. Look, look, look,” I faltered. The words
came slowly from my mouth and were painful to my ears.
My very crooked teeth made it tough for my tongue to
move to make the sounds that were so fluent inside my
head. I covered my mouth with my hand whenever I
talked so people wouldn’t see as the words came out.
I had plenty to say, I just never said it. When I was
small and my dad was still alive, we would go on Sunday
drives from St. Louis to nearby places in Illinois. I
remember how he tried to get me to talk, but my sister filled in for me and I was
happy to have her do so. He came up with a plan—in truth, a bribe. He paid me
a quarter to talk on the trip and my sister a quarter to be quiet or, at least, to give
me a chance to find my voice. We talked about everything we did, everything we
heard, and most of all, we shared stories, songs, and poems. My reading helped
me to find my voice, to talk, and to share in the back seat of that old Buick as we
crisscrossed the Mississippi River on those Sunday afternoons.
Later, as a mother, I did everything I could to get my own children to talk, as
oral language is one of the most important roads to reading and writing. When
my son was about three, I was teaching in New Mexico, and directing plays after
school to earn extra money. We couldn’t afford a babysitter, so when his dad
had to work late, I took my son with me. One evening, he was running up and
down the bleachers in the school auditorium that also served as basketball court,
cafeteria, and theater. My son’s footsteps echoed on the bleachers and I asked him
to come over and talk to me. I said, “David, there are three reasons you need to
stop climbing on the bleachers. One, you might fall and hurt yourself. Two, the
noise is making it hard for us to hear each other as we work on the play. And,
three, I think you would enjoy watching the play.” David responded positively to
my sharing the reasons why, and sat down to watch the rehearsal.
One of my students said, “Wow!” He told me that he had never heard that
many words from his parents at one time. He explained that he mostly got told
what to do: “Do your homework. Eat your dinner. Brush your teeth.” He didn’t
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hear the reasons, didn’t know the whys, and the talk was at the command level,
mostly one-way communication. He didn’t have the language modeling in early
conversations with others that builds a path to literacy. Parents and teachers
need to model language through stories, songs, and poems, and share their
thinking through conversation.
I recalled my own reluctance to talk. The Sunday rides in the Buick: the talk,
songs, and poems filling our car with language—and, yes, the feeling of a quarter
growing warm in my little hands.
Talk builds interest in the world. It motivates
children to find their voice. Oral language
Hug your children
development and thinking about the whys of
by surrounding
the world led to the reading and writing that
changed my life.
them with love and
As an educator, I have focused on studying
language. Talk is
the ways in which children think and learn and
the road that leads
develop language. My research focuses on this
intersection, what I define as Integrative Language
to reading and
Processing. I believe that a love of reading comes
changes lives.
from an enthusiasm for learning, a true curiosity
about people and the world. And this learning starts
with the joy of talking to, with, and by children.
My newest grandchild, my daughter’s
wonderful little girl, Wren, is just over a year old.
Our talk is enhanced by video chats as often as possible. She doesn’t live nearby,
there aren’t many car rides yet, but there is the joy of seeing her face, of knowing
that she understands that Grandma is on the phone. Wren can already wave and say
“hi” and “bye.” Just this week, she hugged the phone to send love to Grandma. Hug
your children by surrounding them with love and language. Talk is the road that
leads to reading and changes lives.
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•••••
Adria F. Klein, Ph.D., is a professor emerita of reading education at CSU San Bernardino where she was the chair of
the Department of Elementary and Bilingual Education. Currently, she is a visiting professor and program director for
early intervention at Saint Mary’s College of California. A former president of the California Reading Association,
she also served on the International Reading Association board of directors. Dr. Klein is the co-author of many
professional books and articles including Interactive Writing, Guided Reading, and Shared Reading as well as a
number of children’s books. As a senior consultant for the nonprofit New Teacher Center, she has been the principal
investigator for a Hewlett Foundation funded grant on oral language development for PreK–Grade 3 and contributed
to the development of the open source website (oral-language.newteachercenter.org), as well as the oral language
assessment application, OLAT. She works with large urban school districts around the United States as well as in a
number of countries including Hungary and Australia.
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Enrique A. Puig
Transcending Language:
From Hola to Les Misérables
I
grew up in Miami at a time when a name like Enrique was strange and
very few people spoke Spanish. Thanks to my parents and grandparents
(not to mention my friends in the neighborhood),
I grew up fully bilingual in a household that was rich
with Hola and Paris Match magazines in addition to
El Diario de las Americas newspaper. Every morning,
Radio Reloj opened the world to us and increased my
vocabulary exponentially.
My paternal grandfather worked for Pan American
Airlines in the 1940s and ’50s and the toss-away
magazines from the planes provided us ample reading
material. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure! Did I read French?
No. But with my English and Spanish and the many pictures, I was able to
determine roughly what the text said in the glossy Paris Match magazines.
When I couldn’t figure something out, I’d ask; although the adults around me
didn’t speak French either, they had other sources of information mysteriously
at their fingertips to help me “decode” what I was attempting to understand.
Somewhere along the way, I figured out that reading was a tool or a
key to learn many other things. Although radio was a major source of new
vocabulary, it was the printed words and
pictures in those magazines that opened the
world of literacy to me. Those stories and
pictures were my passport to places I only
The ability
dreamed of seeing—the Eiffel Tower, St.
to read is
Peter’s Basilica, the Louvre, Gaudi’s Basílica i
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, the
humanity’s
Danube River—the list goes on. They fed my
imagination and prompted me to become more
legacy.
than a little Cuban kid growing up in Miami.
Over time, I realized that language, like
all of the arts, was a powerful instrument for
transcending. Dick and Jane made me see that
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there were similarities and differences among families and gave me options for
my future. Archie, Reggie, and Jughead introduced me to the awkwardness
and fun of adolescence. In Cheaper By the Dozen (the book, not the movie,
and my literate turning point) by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine
Gilbreth Carey, I realized that we all have a story to tell. Then Jules Verne,
Alexandre Dumas, and Victor Hugo taught me about the human condition.
The Gilbreths’ story about the antics of the father and siblings made me
laugh; while Jean Valjean wrenched my heart to tears over a loaf of bread.
Interesting that while I started with Paris Match, to date my favorite book is
Hugo’s Les Misérables—and although I’m biliterate, I still don’t speak French!
Yet Verne, Dumas, and Hugo were instrumental in developing my love affair
with reading. The late Marie Clay was right—we do take different paths
to common outcomes. Now my goal is to ensure that my granddaughter
Alessandra lives in sea of language, print, and stories. The ability to read is
humanity’s legacy.
•••••
Enrique A. Puig, Ed.D., is the director of the Morgridge International Reading Center at the University of Central
Florida and former director of the Florida Literacy and Reading Excellence project; a multi-million dollar grant
charged with providing professional learning opportunities in Florida. He currently teaches graduate and
undergraduate K–12 content area reading at UCF. Puig taught for 25 years in Orange County Public Schools,
Florida, and has worked with numerous school districts from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Washington. He is
author of Guided Reading and Spanish Speaking Students and co-author of The Literacy Coach: Guiding in the
Right Direction, 2nd Edition, and The Literacy Leadership Team: Sustaining and Expanding Success.
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Grace Mah
Worlds Possible Beyond English
elson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he
understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language,
that goes to his heart.”
My story of reading, writing, and speaking English started in preschool.
As a second generation Chinese-American, my
first language was Mandarin Chinese. Both of my
parents are from China, and it was natural for them
to speak Mandarin to me when I was born. When I
went to preschool in the 1960s, my teacher was not
particularly knowledgeable about ESL (English as a
Second Language) students and she told my parents,
“Grace may be ‘mentally retarded’ because she can’t
communicate.” Remember, this was the sixties, and
enlightened attitudes about multilingualism and special needs were not part
of the times. The teacher’s pronouncement so freaked out my parents that
they stopped speaking Mandarin to me and my siblings and talked only
English to us from then on. So, my Mandarin language skills are on par with
the abilities of a four-year-old.
During the time I was in school, I loved reading, writing, and speaking in
English. I was able to join the library’s summer reading program every year,
and take honors and AP English classes in high school.
It wasn’t until I had my first son that I developed a passion for
bilingualism and biliteracy. When I enrolled him in a Mandarin/English
bilingual preschool, I was amazed at how quickly and naturally he learned
both languages. The preschool used a 50/50 immersion model where
Mandarin and English were used equally to teach the content material. There
were no “Mandarin lessons” for vocabulary and grammar. Rather, Mandarin
and English were the medium to teach about colors, animals, rocks, and
flowers—typical preschool fare.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that after two years in this preschool, my
son was able to recognize over 220 Chinese characters and was quite fluent in
Mandarin. He had surpassed my own reading vocabulary in that language.
So, when I was investigating Kindergarten for my son, I was quite taken
by the Spanish immersion elementary school program that our school
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district offered. In the classroom, I observed the children learning Spanish,
seemingly without effort. All of the Kindergarten standards were being
taught in Spanish such as family, home life, and jobs in the community.
They were not learning Spanish vocabulary and conjugations, as in an
enrichment language class. They were learning standard school content
with Spanish as the medium.
It was magical—the dynamics of the teachers interacting with the
students and the ease with which the students were reading, writing, and
communicating in Spanish. I wondered, “Why can’t we do this in Mandarin?”
And thus began my long road to initiate and establish a Mandarin immersion
elementary school program in my local public school district.
The benefits of bilingualism and biliteracy
to children are multifold: increased cognitive
brain functions, greater understanding of
Not only is
multiple cultures, and advances in professional
reading crucial
opportunities. With the increasingly shrinking
global economy, our future American citizens
to American
must be able to comfortably maneuver, build
education, but the
rapport, and conduct business with the
nations of the world.
world of possible
As our U.S. Secretary of Education said,
is even bigger
“Today, a world-class education means learning
to speak, read, and write languages in addition
when you learn
to English . . . This isn’t a matter of getting
another language.
ahead—it’s a matter of catching up.”
Not only is reading crucial to American
education, but the world of possible is even
bigger when you learn another language.
•••••
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Grace Mah is a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education in California. She initiated a Mandarin
Immersion Program in the Palo Alto Unified School District in 1998. A recovering engineer, Mah spent 18 years
in the high-tech industry before having children and finding her passion for education and bilingualism.
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Jane Hansen
Reading Opens Up a World of Writing
he Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver led me to my own writing. Kingsolver
wrote about armhole aprons hanging on hooks on the porch. Armhole
aprons! That’s what my grandma wore! I’m writing a poem about her—I need that
line! I read differently from then on, and found borrowable ideas of all kinds, from
punctuation to format to genre. As a researcher, I always
encourage people to read as writers.
Sometimes the books I read influence me in a less
direct way. They strike a chord my writer self loves to hear. I
recently read The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by
Kao Kalia Yang and noted these special words on page 200:
I stayed up all night typing the essay on our gray
typewriter at the dining table, slowly . . .The sound of
slow keys being clicked . . . Flexing careful fingers every
few minutes. Trying to find a rhythm and a beat in the clicking of the keys,
the mechanical whirl at the end of each line . . . It took me a long time to
think it through . . . but the writing calmed something inside of me.
Sometimes my calm, as with Kao Kalia Yang, starts with a bit of tension. When
I heard poet Seamus Heaney read many years ago, he said, “Your geography is
more important than your history.” In my notebook, I wrote about the openness
of the Minnesota land around my family farm, part of which became:
In Southern Minnesota/children race, arms o u t s t r e t c h e d
through fields of summer, waves/of blue and green that never stop until forever . . .
With thanks to Patricia MacLachlan, the author of Sarah Plain and Tall, for the
idea of the waves of blue and green. I think of the authors who give me ideas for
writing—and for the craving to write that reading brings.
•••••
Jane Hansen started her teaching career in Liberia, as a Peace Corps volunteer, and then taught in New Jersey,
Minneapolis, Hawaii, and Iowa. After earning her doctorate at the University of Minnesota and a professorship at the
University of New Hampshire, she moved to the University of Virginia for her second professorship. Throughout her
decades as a professor, she served as a researcher who visited classrooms twice a week to study children as writers,
and wrote about them When Writers Read and The PreK-2 Writing Classroom: Growing Confident Writers. She has
been active in NCTE, IRA, served as president of LRA, and is currently president of the Reading Hall of Fame. Upon
retirement as professor emerita, she continues as co-director of the Central Virginia Writing Project.
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Imagination
I was creating my own excitement, exploring yet
another universe with my new literary friends
that I met in the pages of a book.
~José M. Cruz
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Walter Dean Myers
I Am What I Read
could have been an alien, dropped from some strange planet into
the Harlem of the 1940s. I didn’t know who my real parents were,
or why I wasn’t with them. My name, I was told, was Walter Myers
and the name of the people I was living with was Dean. There were
odd things I couldn’t do—like sing a song on
key when I started Sunday school. I remember
Mrs. Bellinger, a large busty woman asking me
if I could hear the songs she was trying to teach
us. It really didn’t bother me that much because
I liked the songs and holding hands with other
kids as we gathered on Sunday mornings to go to
Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Later, when I started public school, I discovered
that the other children and my teachers couldn’t understand my speech. I
began my nearly eight years of speech therapy to try to clear up my
enunciation. It didn’t work very well and I found myself somewhat
isolated socially. Alone with my books. I liked basketball and the fact that
I was always big for my age. I wasn’t the kid that bullies confronted. Still,
I sensed a difference between myself and other kids my age.
My stepmom had read to me from the time I arrived in New York.
She often worked cleaning apartments or, if she were lucky, in some
factory setting. When she wasn’t working, she would do the chores
around the house and then would read from the magazines she enjoyed.
Most of the magazines were love stories and I would sit on her lap and
watch her finger move across the page, word by word, as she read aloud.
I didn’t understand much about the stories, I just enjoyed sitting on her
lap, but soon I discovered the connection between the words she was
pointing to and what she was saying. She was reading. It didn’t take me
long to figure out the more familiar words and then the patterns. By the
time I was four or five, I could sit in my favorite chair, a sturdy wooden
chair with a cushioned seat and back, and read to Mama.
It was no big deal. Magazines had words in them and I had learned to
read those words. As Mama had, as I thought that everybody had.
I don’t know where the books came from that I discovered. The Little
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Engine that Could comes to mind as an early book. I liked The Three Little
Bears and Little Red Riding Hood, too. By eight, I was leading a dual life. I
played in the streets all day, and at night I would come home and spend
a lot of time with stories. It was my very special world. As time went on,
the stories stayed in my mind. They were with me like secret friends and
would pop up in the oddest places. In the middle of a stickball game, for
example, or on a tree-climbing expedition.
As I grew older, I was surprised to find that
the things I couldn’t do were somewhat odd
As time went on,
to other people. I was tone deaf, had almost no
ability to distinguish colors, and still couldn’t
the stories stayed
speak well. What I could do, and what was
in my mind. They
slowly taking over my life, was appreciating and
dealing with words and language.
were with me like
Once I began to read, I began to exist. I am
secret friends.
what I read—all the books, all the papers, all
the stories. I think that’s what I’ve always been.
Writing is just an extension of my reading life.
And I love it! •••••
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Walter Dean Myers won the Council on Interracial Books for Children Contest in 1969, which resulted in the
publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? Since then, he has won more awards than any author
for young adults, and is one of the most prolific writers, with more than 110 books to his credit. He is the
recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He has
won the Coretta Scott King Award five times and received two Newbery Honors. His book, Monster, was the
first winner of the Michael L. Printz Award, a National Book Award Finalist, and a New York Times bestseller.
He delivered the 2009 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, a distinction reserved for an individual who has
made significant contributions to the field of children’s literature. Most recently, he served as the National
Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a post appointed by the Library of Congress.
Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014) changed the face of children’s literature by representing the diversity of
the children of our nation in his award-winning books. He was a deeply authentic writer who urged other
authors, editors, and publishers not only to make sure every child could find him- or herself in a book, but
also to tell compelling and challenging stories that would inspire children to reach their full potential. My
favorite quote from Walter is a clarion call to embrace the power of books to inform and transform our
lives: He said, “Once I began to read, I began to exist.” He will be missed by all. —Richard Robinson
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Jon Scieszka
The Seed
ere’s the story that made everything possible for me.
A kid plants a carrot seed.
His mom tells him she’s afraid it won’t come up.
His dad tells him he’s afraid it won’t come up.
His older brother just flat out tells him it won’t come up.
But every day, the kid weeds and waters his one-seed
carrot patch.
Nothing comes up. And nothing comes up.
Everyone keeps telling the kid it won’t come up.
But the kid keeps weeding and watering.
“And then, one day, a carrot came up . . .
. . . just as the little boy had known it would.”
And the last page, the last image, is the kid wheeling away a single carrot
so huge that it completely fills his wheelbarrow.
This story, The Carrot Seed, written by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by
Crockett Johnson, exploded my three-year-old mind and reshaped it in the
most perfect Zen way . . . that needs not a bit more explanation.
•••••
Jon Scieszka was appointed the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in January 2008. Born
in Flint, Michigan, Scieszka earned a bachelor’s degree in writing from Albion College and a master of fine arts
degree from Columbia University. He held a number of teaching positions in the first through eighth grades
before taking a year off to develop ideas for children’s books. He is the author of many bestselling children’s
titles, including The Stinky Cheese Man, which won a Caldecott Honor medal, The True Story of the Three Little
Pigs, and the Time Warp Trio series. Scieszka is the founder of Guys Read, a nonprofit literacy organization. For
more about Jon Scieszka’s work, see www.jsworldwide.com/proclamation.html.
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Ralph Fletcher
A Chance to Live Many Parallel Lives ecently, during an author visit to a school, a fifth-grade boy asked me:
“When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“I wanted to play centerfield for the Boston Red Sox,” I replied without
a moment’s hesitation.
“Well, you could still do it!” he told me.
I smiled. “I don’t think so. I’m too old now.
Plus, I was always a very average athlete. I wasn’t
good enough.”
“But you could write a book where the
main character plays centerfield for the Red Sox,”
he persisted.
True! Being a writer means being able to create
an existence you couldn’t live in your real life. The
same thing is true for reading. When I’m reading, I can be a teenaged kid with
cancer or an inmate in a mental ward. I can live
on a remote lighthouse off the coast of Australia
in 1920. One day, a boat washes ashore with a
The books I’ve
baby on board—alive!
read have struck
Humans are fiercely curious. One life simply
isn’t enough to live. Reading books has allowed
chords within my
me to explore a myriad of other existences.
soul, chords I never
John Updike once said: “We contain chords
someone else must strike.” I think that Updike
knew I had.
was talking about love, but his comment
resonates with books and reading. The books
I’ve read have struck chords within my soul,
chords I never knew I had.
•••••
b
Ralph Fletcher travels around the U.S. and abroad, helping teachers find wiser ways of teaching writing. He is the
author of many books for young readers including Fig Pudding, Flying Solo, Twilight Comes Twice, Also Known as
Rowan Pohi, and Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid. His professional books for teachers include Boy Writers:
Reclaiming Their Voices, Pyrotechnics on the Page, and What A Writer Needs, 2nd Edition.
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Margarita Engle
Reading and Writing Across the Hyphen
y mother is Cuban and my father is American, so I think of myself
as Cuban-American, with a hyphen built into my memory. I was
born and raised in Los Angeles, but the most thrilling experience of my
childhood was spending adventurous summers on the island, where I met
my grandmother, great-grandmother, and the entire
extended family. I was immersed in the Spanish
language and Cuban culture, and I also fell in love
with tropical nature, leading me to become a scientist
as well as a poet.
The 1962 Missile Crisis transformed my childhood
into a devastating “before” and “after.” Travel to Cuba
became impossible. My life was sliced in half.
During the early, pre-Crisis years, I loved poetry,
and I read every poetry book I could find. Emily Dickinson and Robert
Frost were available in the library. José Martí and Federico García Lorca
were on my mother’s bookshelves. When it came to prose, stories about
horses were my favorites. I was a city girl who treasured rural summers in
my mother’s hometown of Trinidad, on the south-central coast of Cuba,
and on a nearby family farm at the foot of wild green mountains. Over
there, my cousins galloped fearlessly. They were expert guajiros—farmers,
and vaqueros—cowboys. Their days were spent rounding up free-roaming
cattle and performing rope tricks. At home in Los Angeles, my days were
spent reading The Black Stallion, and the legend of Pegasus, told and re-told
in various mythology books that seemed more real to me than my daily life.
Those larger-than-life horses were my escape from smog, noise, traffic, and
the impersonal crowds of anonymous city streets.
In my mind, poetry and stories were not separated. Reading and
writing were natural outgrowths of each other, like grafted fruit trees or
transplanted flowers. I experimented with haiku, ballads, sonnets, fables,
and short stories. I longed to understand the wide world that lay beyond
U.S. borders, but there were no authentic multicultural children’s books.
None. Not one. Instinctively, I switched to grownup books, searching for
stories that would help me reclaim the experience of belonging to more
than one country. The first book I bought with my own money was
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I was ten
years old.
One year later, when I was in junior
high, the Missile Crisis maimed my world. It
was not a war. No shots were fired, but for
Cuban-Americans, the hyphen was no longer
a bridge. It became a chasm, dividing the
halves of families as thoroughly as if we were
separated by galaxies. During my teen years,
it seemed easier for American citizens to walk
on the moon than to visit relatives in Cuba.
Gradually, I created my own island within my
imagination. It is an island that is still with me
now, a place where my voice is free to fly back
and forth across the boundaries of history. It
is a place made of words, in a written world
where neighboring countries can learn about
each other, with the hope of someday reestablishing diplomatic relations and free travel.
In that written world, the hyphen is once again
a bridge.
•••••
I created my own
island within my
imagination. It is an
island that is still
with me now, a place
where my voice is
free to fly back
and forth across
the boundaries
b
of history.
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of The Surrender Tree, which received the first Newbery
Honor ever awarded to a Latino/a. Her young adult verse novels have also received multiple Pura Belpré
Awards and Honors, as well as three Américas Awards, and the Jane Addams Peace Award, among others.
Margarita’s newest verse novel is Silver People, Voices From the Panama Canal. Books for younger children
include Mountain Dog, Summer Birds, When You Wander, and Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish. Margarita lives in central
California where she enjoys hiding in the forest to help train her husband’s wilderness search and rescue dogs.
For more about her work, see www.margaritaengle.com.
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Richard L. Allington
Imagining Life in Another Time
s a child I was fascinated by history and historical fiction. I spent
hours at my desk in the one-room country school I attended through
sixth grade reading books with an historical emphasis. In college, I was an
American history major because I thought I was going to become a high
school history teacher and football coach. In the
end, I became a fourth-grade teacher and then a
reading specialist. In both of those roles, and as a
father as well, I became a purveyor of historical texts.
I read and recommended such texts to my students
and my children.
One book, The Matchlock Gun by Walter
Edmonds, began my journey into historical texts.
It was my “home run” book! I think I was in third
grade when it first captured my imagination. The Matchlock Gun is a heroic
story set during the French and Indian War near Albany, New York, where
I ultimately worked for much of my professional life.
I have recommended that book to many elementary school students as
well as to my own children. When I talk
about the book, I try to set the historical
stage and ask children to imagine living
in the wilderness with not a neighbor in
I love how such
sight. I even point out the Eurocentric
books bring history
perspective the author takes and ask
readers to consider how the story might
to life and help
be told differently by a member of the
students consider
Iroquois nation.
just how different
I must also note Turn Homeward,
Hannalee by Patricia Beatty, another
children’s lives were
historical text that I found compelling as
compared to today.
a child and continue to recommend as an
adult. This book is set during the Civil
War and features a Southern working class
girl as the heroine. As is the case with The
Matchlock Gun, this book invites readers to
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156
imagine life as a child during an historical era that is very different from
today. I love how such books bring history to life and help students
consider just how different children’s lives were compared to today.
History and historical fiction allow me, as a reader, to imagine life
in another time and in different social environments. My love of history
informs and enriches my life. I’m addicted!
•••••
Richard L. Allington is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee. He was an elementary school
classroom teacher and a Title I director in poor rural schools prior to beginning his career as a teacher
educator and instructional researcher. His research interests include reading/learning disabilities and
effective instruction, especially in classroom settings. His publications include over 100 articles, chapters,
monographs, and books. He served or serves on the editorial advisory boards of Reading Research Quarterly,
Review of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, Reading Teacher, Elementary School
Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, and Remedial and Special Education. Dr. Allington has served as
president of the National Reading Conference and the International Reading Association. He received the
William S. Gray Citation of Merit from IRA for his contributions to the organization and the profession. He
was co-recipient (with Dr. Anne McGill-Franzen) of the Albert J. Harris Award for contributions to improving
professional understanding of reading/learning disabilities and was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame.
Dr. Allington is author or co-author of several books including Classrooms That Work: They Can All Read And
Write, Schools That Work: All Children Can Read And Write, and What Really Matters for Struggling Readers:
Designing Research-based Programs.
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Marilyn Burns
Reading Your Way Into Math
remember my father reading to me after I was tucked in to go to sleep.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales were a constant favorite and I was enthralled by the
stories. I was amazed that those black marks on the pages somehow turned
into such engrossing tales. And I was impressed that my father seemed to
hear the voices as he read dialogue from villains or
princesses or knights. I was hooked by the desire to
read, to have access to those stories, and to hear those
voices for myself.
By first grade, I was reading stories on my own.
But I knew I wasn’t really reading yet. I still wasn’t
hearing the voices that my father did. In retrospect, I
was probably reading Dick and Jane and it would have
been hard even for my father to give those stories a
dramatic reading. But I thought that when you could truly read, you would
hear the voices.
It took a while for me give up that misconception and realize that
characters’ voices, as well as visual images of how they looked, all existed in my
mind. I finally realized that I could conjure them up for myself. At last, I was a
reader. It was up to me to bring meaning to those black marks, and I could do
it. I still marvel today that those black marks are not only capable of creating
stories with voices and pictures, but can also give life to powerful emotions.
What an achievement of humankind!
With my love of reading, majoring in mathematics seemed an odd
choice. It was only after teaching for 10 years or so that I made an important
instructional connection between the two. I remember thinking in my early
days of teaching that I could help my students become successful because
math didn’t rely on reading. We didn’t read in math class, we did math, and I
presented that view to my students.
This was another misconception. And just as I can’t remember the moment
that I gave up the notion that hearing voices was part of reading, I can’t
recall exactly when I gave up the notion that reading wasn’t part of learning
math. Eventually, I embraced the idea that both had the same goal—bringing
meaning to black marks on pages. Both reading and doing math involve
creating visual images. Both can engender emotions and, yes, even when
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doing math, I’ve experienced pleasure, delight, and amusement, along with
consternation, confusion, and frustration. The shift I made in my teaching was
to help my students experience the full breadth of doing math. And to make
that shift, I started including children’s literature in my math teaching.
My goal was to find worthy literature that also could be useful for
math lessons. How Big Is a Foot? by Rolf Myller, first published in 1962,
was one of my early finds and is ideal for helping students understand
the reason and benefit for standard units of measure. Eric Carle’s Rooster’s
Off to See the World, published in 1972, poses a perfect problem for
Kindergarten children to figure out how many animals went off to see
the world. 17 Kings and 42 Elephants, written by Margaret Mahy in 1987,
is a rollicking poem of a jungle journey. Laura Geringer’s A Three Hat
Day is a sweet love story that introduces even young children to the idea
of permutations. And part of Laura Ingalls
Wilder’s 1932 classic, Little House in the Big
Woods, is perfect for a fractions lesson when,
in Chapter 10, Laura and Mary grapple with
Both reading and
figuring out how to share their two cookies so
math have the
Baby Carrie gets a fair share.
same goal—bringing
Books are a way to tempt students who
are generally reticent about math. They’re a
meaning to black
way to entice math-oriented students into the
marks on pages.
wonder of reading. I’m hooked. My collection
was initially small, but I now have hundreds of
children’s books on my shelves, including many
recently written books and also nonfiction titles
that I regularly use for teaching math.
•••••
b
Marilyn Burns, the founder of Math Solutions, is one of today’s most highly respected mathematics educators and
authors. Over the course of more than 50 years, Marilyn has taught children, led in-service sessions, presented at
conferences, contributed to professional journals, written more than a dozen books for children, and created more
than 20 professional development resources for teachers and administrators. In 1996, Marilyn received the Glenn
Gilbert National Leadership Award from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics for her influence on
mathematics education. In 1997, she received the Louise Hay Award for Contributions to Mathematics Education
from the Association for Women in Mathematics. In 2010, Marilyn was inducted into the Educational Publishing
Hall of Fame by the Association of Educational Publishers. You can find titles and authors of the children’s books
that Marilyn recommends for teaching math at www.mathsolutions.com/documents/lessons_chart-2.pdf and
teacher.scholastic.com/products/math-concepts-skills/math-reads/math-books-topics.htm.
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Kwame Alexander
How to Read a Book
Then, watch a novel world unfold
down the rabbit hole.
Oh, the places you can go.
A summer balloon ride.
A polar express.
First, find a tree—a
Black Tupelo or White Crabapple
will do—and
plant yourself.
(It’s okay if you prefer a stoop, like
Langston Hughes)
Once you’re comfy,
Peel its gentle skin,
like you would a Clementine
the color of sunrise.
The scent of morning air
and sweet butterfly kisses.
Next, dig your thumb at the bottom of
each juicy section and POP the
words out
piece by piece
part by part
page by ruffling page
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Bring your favorite
purple crayon
and oodles of cotton candy
for all the rainy, snowy days.
Lastly, when the sun is so quiet,
get cozy between the covers and
let your fingers wander (where
the sidewalk ends, and the wild
things are)
Squeeze every morsel
of each plump line
until the last drop
of magic
d
r
i
p
s
from the giving tree
and bursts of orange
explode
beneath the good night moon.
Don’t rush though:
Your eyes need time to taste.
Your soul needs time to wonder.
Now, sleep
Dream
Hope
(you never reach)
The End.
•••••
Kwame Alexander is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of 17 books, including The Crossover
(a middle-grade novel), Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (a picture book about a rooster that starts a
jazz band with Duck Ellington), and the YA novel He Said/She Said, a Junior Library Guild Selection. He’s also
a poet, publisher, literary editor, playwright, producer, speaker, performer, teacher, and book festival founder.
He believes that poetry and literature can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young
people. Alexander is the Poet Laureate of LitWorld, and, through his Book-in-a-Day literacy program, he has
created more than 3,000 student authors of 64 anthologies of poetry and fiction. A frequent speaker and
workshop presenter at conferences in the U.S., he also travels the world planting seeds of literary love (Brazil,
Italy, France, Turkey, Canada, and Ghana are recent stops). Recently, Alexander led a delegation of 20 writers and
activists to Ghana where they delivered books, built a library, and provided literacy professional development
to 300 teachers as part of LEAP for Ghana, a literacy program he co-founded. From 2005–2011, Kwame was
the founding producer of the Capital BookFest, an annual touring book festival that reached more than 10,000
book-lovers in Charleston, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia. A version of this poem will
be published in 2016 in a children’s book entitled The Book Party.
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Pam Muñoz Ryan
Stories of My Imagination
efore books, there were the stories of my imagination.
I didn’t come from a print-rich environment, but I came from a storyrich tradition. First, both of my grandmothers were storytellers of sorts—of
family incidents, neighborhood shenanigans, and their personal trials and
journeys, all recounted over and over again while
walking with them around their yards, or next to them
on a porch swing after a big dinner.
In addition, I was blessed with an un-choreographed
childhood. I was the oldest of the three sisters in my
family and the oldest of the 23 cousins on my mother’s
side. I directed my minions—sisters and cousins—and
they often obliged. I was the benevolent queen, the
mom in the pretend family, the conductor of the picnic
table train, the doctor who saved lives, and the heroine who saved the day. Over
time, that power dwindled, only to be rekindled when I became a writer.
My earliest memory of reading from a book was at my Mexican
grandmother’s house. She lived only a few blocks away from us and I spent
much of my afterschool and free time there. In her living room, on the bottom
shelf of a bookcase, was an entire set of encyclopedias. I’m not sure how
they came to be there. She was a fan of buying things from door-to-door
salesmen—an enormous juicer, a vacuum, cleaning supplies, cosmetics—so I
suspect someone talked her into a set she could buy over time. I became intrigued with the encyclopedias because in the middle of each
volume was a section printed in color. I studied the illustrated anatomy pages
with the plastic overlays, the botanical plates, the illustrated fairy tales, but once
I reached the G encyclopedia, I never went any further. I had found a section
devoted to illustrated Greek myths. Prometheus’s liver was eaten by an eagle.
Echo was destined never to speak for himself but only to repeat the words of
others. Pan became the cause of sudden unexplained anxiety. And glorious
Pandora unleashed the world’s misery. Horrible. Frightening. How I loved them!
In fifth grade, I discovered the library. We had moved across town and I was
new to the neighborhood. It was summertime and I didn’t yet know anyone. I
started riding my bike to the small branch library nearby, filling my bike basket
with books. That memory is so vivid that even today I can relive the exact
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route I took down the alley, through the Knights of Columbus property, over a
bumpy dirt field and into the parking lot of Green Frog Market, to wait for the
stop light on the corner, ride down Bernard Street to Baker Street, and park
my bike in front of the library.
Like the route to the library that is etched into my memory, so those books
of my young adolescence are carved into my soul: Treasure Island, Swiss Family
Robinson, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and the Sue Barton, Nurse series.
If I loved a book, I read it many times.
The act of reading and escaping into books
allowed me to live many more lives than my
Hearing family
real one. Books allowed me to travel beyond
stories, the luxury
Bakersfield, California. They helped put my
world in perspective, especially when I did not
of dramatic play,
fit in. I was comforted by the characters’ lives,
reading and loving
living them vicariously, as I muddled through
my own.
books—eventually
Later, all of those dots on the path—
led me to my
hearing family stories, the luxury of dramatic
play, reading and loving books—eventually led
writing life and the
me to my writing life and the most wonderful
most wonderful gift
gift in return, readers.
I cherish what one of my young readers
in return, readers.
wrote to me. He said, “I love books because if
anything ever happens to me in life, like what’s
in a story, I can think how to be.”
That is the power of reading.
•••••
b
Pam Muñoz Ryan has written over 30 books for young people, including the young adult novels Esperanza
Rising, Becoming Naomi León, Riding Freedom, Paint the Wind, The Dreamer, and the upcoming
Echo. Among other honors, she is the recipient of the NEA’s Civil and Human Rights Award, the Virginia
Hamilton Literary Award for Multicultural Literature, and is twice the recipient of the Willa Cather Award,
the Pura Belpré Medal, and the PEN USA Award. She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, holds a
bachelor’s and master’s degree from San Diego State University, and lives near San Diego with her family.
For more information, visit www.PamMunozRyan.com.
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Sharon M. Draper
My Journey from Reader to Writer
y the time I could walk, my mother had already introduced me to books.
She and I would visit our neighborhood library once a week, where the
chairs were just the right size and the books were placed low to the floor, just
at the right level for little people like me. I reveled in the magnificent array of
reading materials from which I could choose, especially
brand new books, still crisp and unsoiled by little
hands. The pages, stiff like brand new soldiers, turned
slowly, almost squeaking on the binding as they opened
to page after page of unimagined pleasures. I loved the
crackle of the protective plastic coverings, the smell
of the ink on the page, the feel of the thick, golden
pages on my fingers, and the magical words that waited
for me. I loved Dr. Seuss and how he played with
words and characters. Gentle Horton, who heard a Who, and hatched an egg.
Bartholomew and his five hundred hats. The magic of McElligot’s Pool.
I still love the smell of a library, and whenever I enter one, I breathe deeply of
that almost intoxicating library smell. It’s sort of like dust and ink and magic all
mixed together. The library of my childhood had wooden floors, which gleamed
first thing in the morning with fresh wax and creaked when you tiptoed across
them to find a book on the shelf. The shelves, also made of wood, held row upon
row of possibilities, all brightly jacketed and waiting to be opened and discovered.
I remember the ducks crossing a busy street in Make Way for Ducklings.
I’d never been to Boston, and for that matter, had never seen a real duck, but
that didn’t make the story any less compelling. That book led me to Robert
McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. I’d certainly never encountered a bear, and I know
I’d never picked blueberries, but the books became my passageway into a world
so much larger and more exciting than the small house in which we lived.
I delighted in the antics of Tigger and Winnie the Pooh, not the animated,
television version that children now associate with those characters, but the
words and pictures which came alive as I read A.A. Milne’s wonderful stories.
I knew I’d recognize the Hundred Acre Woods should I ever pass by, and
Christopher Robin would be a delightful playmate, I was sure, even if he did
wear those short pants all the time. (I remember thinking that Christopher
Robin’s mother had very little fashion sense!)
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I marched in a line with Madeline, enjoyed the adventures of Curious George,
and was lulled to sleep by the soothing words of Goodnight Moon.
By the time I started school, I was a fluent reader. I don’t remember ever
learning to read—it just happened gradually as I progressed from listening to
the stories my mother read, to reading them with her, to finally reading them by
myself. I breezed through Kindergarten, even though the teacher frowned on
children being “too advanced” and knowing “too much” before getting to her
classroom. She felt that parents just didn’t have the knowledge to teach a child to
read, and surely I had learned something incorrectly. But since she had her hands
full teaching the rest of the class how to read the “right” way, I had plenty of time
to look at books and read on my own.
By first and second grade, we were deeply immersed in the Dick and Jane
books. These were the required readers that our school, and most schools in the
country, used at this time. The stories surrounded a white, privileged family that
consisted of Mom, Dad, Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, and Jip the dog. They lived in a
lovely house, drove a nice blue car, and nothing bad ever happened to them. “See
Jane run. Run, Jane, run. Jane can hop.” These were the kind of sentences found
in the early books. It never occurred to me that this family did not represent my
own, or those of most of the children in my class. I thrilled in their adventures,
and each year, the text would become more difficult, and the adventures of Dick
and Jane would get more complicated, but still, nothing worse than a rainstorm
ever happened to them. I read the stories at school and at the library, absorbed
them, and even identified with the characters and adventures presented to me. But
there were no children of color in any of the books.
As I got older and was able to go to the library by myself, I discovered Beverly
Cleary. Beezus and Ramona, Henry Huggins, and Ribsy were all characters
I could accept, laugh with, and understand. Even though their world was still
woefully lacking in cultural diversity, everything wasn’t perfect. They didn’t have
much money, and they had real, albeit humorous difficulties. I’ll never forget
Henry Huggins trying to get that dog home in a box on the city bus!
I read all of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and then all of the
books by Louisa May Alcott. Spiced up with fanciful tales of Danny Dunn and his
homework machine, a brilliant invention as far as I was concerned, I proceeded
to steal from the rich and feed the poor with Robin Hood, run away from home
and get lost with Pinocchio and Tom Sawyer, and long for home with Heidi. I
read all of Kipling, all the Baum stories about the Wizard of Oz, and delighted in
Peter Pan’s Neverland, where children refused to grow up and could fly!
As I look back, I realize that almost none of the books I loved included
characters who looked like me. I’m sure that influenced my writing later on.
By the time I got to the sixth grade, I had read most of the books in our small
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school library and most of those on the children’s side of the public library. The
librarians knew me by name and often let me take home 10 or 12 books at a
time. I read them voraciously and took them back to be exchanged for more.
One librarian in particular, Mrs. Pratt, a bespeckled woman of great girth, guided
my reading, encouraged me to read wider and deeper, and even offered me new
books to take home to review for the rest of the children who visited the library.
I was frustrated, however, because I had nowhere to grow. Back then you had
to be 14 to get an adult card and I was only 11 and a half. Mrs. Pratt recognized
my dilemma, and one day when I walked in she announced with great
anticipation in her voice, “I have a surprise for you!”
“A new book has come in?” I asked.
“Better than that!”
“The sequel to Caddie Woodlawn?”
“No.” She grinned like a schoolgirl, then
handed me a green library card.
The books became
Now, library cards for children were yellow.
Adult
cards were white. I had never seen a
my passageway
green one. I looked at her quizzically. “What’s
into a world so
this?” I asked.
“It’s a special-permission card,” she told me.
much larger and
“With this card, you may check out books from
more exciting than
the adult side of the library. The green card
means someone will make sure you don’t check
the small house in
out books that are too grown-up for you, but as
which we lived.
of today, the rest of the library belongs to you!”
I think I saw tears in her eyes. I jumped with
excitement, gave her a hug, and ran with joyful
anticipation to the great adventure of reading the
rest of the books in the library. I am still there.
b
•••••
Sharon M. Draper is a professional educator as well as an accomplished writer, the author of over 30 books. She
has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year, is a five-time winner of the CSK Literary Award, and is a
New York Times bestselling author—her book Out of My Mind was on the New York Times bestseller list for over
a year. She has been honored at the White House six times, and was chosen as one of four authors in the country
to speak at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. In 2012, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award
for contributions to the field of adolescent literature by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National
Council of Teachers of English, as well as the 33rd Annual Jeremiah Luddington Award by the Educational Book and
Media Association, also for lifetime achievement. She was selected by the U.S. State Department to be a literary
ambassador to the children of Africa and China.
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David Lee Finkle
A Reading Tale Told in Comics
learned to read so I could read the comics pages in the newspaper
by myself. I loved reading the funnies so much that by second
grade, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I learned to love reading in general
so much that by sixth grade, I also wanted to be a writer.
My love of reading and writing led me into
teaching, but being a teacher—a middle school
teacher—requires me to keep my sense of humor,
so I finally became a cartoonist, too.
When I thought of writing about my reading life, it
seemed natural to relate that story through comics. So
what follows is the story of my reading, told through
my alter-ego, Mr. Fitz, who is trying to explain to his
student, Spike, how reading changed his life.
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168
•••••
David Lee Finkle is a middle school language arts teacher and the creator of the Daytona Beach NewsJournal comic strip, Mr. Fitz. He is the author of Writing Extraordinary Essays: Every Middle Schooler Can! and
Teaching Students to Make Writing Visual and Vivid, as well as the novels Making My Escape, and (with his
son Christopher) Portents and Portals. He is probably reading about seven books at once right now.
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José M. Cruz
My Mother’s Letters, the Sears Catalog,
and the Books That Showed Me the Way
I
was six years old when my mother left Santo Domingo and the Dominican
Republic for New York City. She often wrote long letters describing her life in
New York. My Aunt Cecilia read the letters out loud to me, my grandparents, and
to my five cousins. After she read them, I would ask her
if I could read each letter myself. The letters were difficult
for me to comprehend because I was still learning to read
and because I had to decipher my mother’s handwriting.
I mostly enjoyed reading the postcards she sent of various
New York landmarks such as the Empire State Building
and Central Park. Sometimes I carried the postcards in my
pocket to share with friends or to prove that my mother
actually lived in America. After reading and spending hours
looking at the postcards, I began to think that one day, I was going to live in the
Empire State Building and go swimming in the lakes in Central Park.
In Santo Domingo, we had a neighbor who was a tailor. He kept a couple of
old Sears catalogs in his shop. He used to allow the neighborhood kids to sit inside
and keep him company while he worked. While there, we liked to play a game
called “Eso es mio,” meaning, “that’s mine.” In this game, we turned the pages of the
catalog and whoever touched the page first got to claim all of the items on that
page. Even though the catalog was in an unfamiliar language, I longed to be able to
read English so that I could read the descriptions of the pictured items. I couldn’t
wait to come to America to buy everything in the Sears catalog.
When I finally did arrive in New York, five years after my mother’s departure,
I was disappointed that we did not live in the Empire State Building. I also
discovered that I could not go swimming in the lakes in Central Park. But, at long
last, being reunited with my mother and living together in New York more than
compensated for this disappointment.
I arrived in New York in the middle of September. A week after my arrival
at P.S. 165 in Manhattan, Ms. Guild, my teacher, gave my class a homework
assignment I would never forget. She said, “Your homework today is to become
a member of the Public Library. By Monday I expect every one of you to have
a library card.” She specifically said, “Go to the Bloomingdale Branch located
on West 100th Street.” We went to the library and took our passports for
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identification. That day, my mother and I became members of the NYC Public
Library and we had our membership cards to prove it. I did not believe it when the
librarian told me I could borrow any book I wanted. When I saw all the books, I
was beyond excited. It was my first time in a library and my heart was pounding.
Reading was difficult for me because I was still learning English, but my
struggles with the language did not deter me
from taking out as many books as I could carry.
When I read I was transported to another
I was creating my
universe. It was as though the author had written
own excitement,
me a letter which I did not understand at first,
but if I didn’t give up and kept at it, eventually
exploring yet
I could. What kept me reading was that I felt
another universe
as though each author were writing to me; it
was like reading my mother’s letters. Ernest
with my new literary
Hemingway, Guy de Maupassant, and John
friends that I met in
Steinbeck became my good friends. I am grateful
to my teachers, Mr. Newman and Mr. Erlich,
the pages of a book.
who introduced me to all these great writers, and
I am also grateful to Sister Grace Anne Troisi, a
Sister of Charity, and her friend Connie Anestis,
who insisted that I read the “great” novels.
Reading not only introduced me to a
universe I never would have known, it also kept me out of trouble. The inner city
was filled with opportunities to go in the wrong direction; there were gangs, drugs,
and plenty of other self-destructive distractions. Often, in school, I would hear
people say, “Did you hear about this person who was shot, or stabbed, or died of an
overdose?” Although I was not an angel, when it came to these common tragedies
in the community, I was out of the loop. “Man, José, where have you been? You
never know what’s happening. You miss all the excitement!” my friends would say.
In fact, I was creating my own excitement, exploring yet another universe with
my new literary friends that I met in the pages of a book.
b
•••••
José M. Cruz was born in the Dominican Republic and arrived in New York at the age of ten. He is a product of the
New York City public school system and graduated from Manhattanville College in 1975 with a B.A. in Economics. He
has a J.D. from the CUNY Law School and was admitted to the New York State Bar. Cruz also has an M.S. from the
Bank Street College of Education. For the past five years, he has been the principal of Mathematics, Science Research
& Technology Magnet High School in Queens, New York. Cruz loves his work and he believes that what teachers do
in the classroom today determines what our world will look like tomorrow.
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Kathy G. Short
Reading to Imagine and Transform
rowing up in Archbold, in a rural northwest corner of Ohio with few
neighbors, books opened up new worlds, transporting me beyond the
confines of my little community. Taking advantage of any available moment
to read, I kept books with me at all times. One day, my second-grade
teacher even caught me sliding a library book out of
my desk, sneaking a look between spelling words on
the weekly test.
A large stack of books was always beside my bed
and I often read late into the night, carefully hiding my
flashlight beneath the covers so my parents wouldn’t
discover that I was still awake. I also regularly snuck
through the cornfields behind our house to a tree that
became an oasis for me. There I could sit and read
for hours without being bothered by my four younger brothers. The books
came from our town library because our school was too small to have its
own library. Over time, I checked out every book in the library’s Childhood
Biography series, fascinated by the diverse people in those books—all
representing lives of possibility so different from my own.
In many ways, my fascination with books defied deficit conceptions of
families like mine. By eighth grade, both of my parents had dropped out of
school to work on the family farm and had married quite young. My father
sold auto parts and my mother cleaned houses. They did not buy books,
read themselves, or read aloud to me. No one in my extended family had
ever graduated from college. According to the statistics, I was “at risk.” The
books in the town library literally transformed my life, transporting me
to other places and times to experience the many different ways in which
people lived and thought around the world.
My reading focused on the real lives of people, both contemporary
and historical. When I was in sixth grade, however, I discovered books of
another sort. I was babysitting, bored by TV, and looking for something to
read when I came across Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. I was swept
away into a world of imagination. For the first time, I experienced a world
of possibility, a “what if ” that was no longer bounded by “what is.”
These worlds of possibility became the foundation that later supported
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my interest in issues of social justice. I was
no longer willing to accept the world “as it
is”—instead, I was determined to imagine
a world that could be better and more just.
That ability to imagine an alternative world
is essential to being able to take action and
to work for change. Imagination had always
seemed outside of my reach, an extra “frill”
that practical, hardworking people like my
family members didn’t need. Books allowed
me to see that imagination is essential to
considering perspectives beyond my own
and really listening to others in order to
work for transformation and change. Without
imagination, we are stuck in the present
moment, frozen in time and place. Books
extend the present moment, allowing us to
reflect on the past and imagine the future.
•••••
Books allowed me to
see that imagination
is essential to
considering
perspectives beyond
my own and really
listening to others
in order to work for
transformation
b
and change.
Kathy G. Short is a professor in Language, Reading, and Culture at the University of Arizona with a focus on
inquiry, dialogue, and global children’s literature. She has worked extensively with teachers all over the world to
develop inquiry-based curriculum and has authored multiple books and articles, including Creating Classrooms for
Authors and Inquirers, Literature as a Way of Knowing, Talking about Books, and Stories Matter: The Complexity of
Cultural Authenticity in Children’s Literature. She is director of Worlds of Words (www.wowlit.org), an initiative to
build intercultural understanding through global literature and was president of USBBY, the U.S. national section
of IBBY, the International Board of Books for Young People. Short was named the 2011 Outstanding Educator of
the Language Arts by the National Council of Teachers of English and served on the 2014 Caldecott Medal Award
Committee. She is currently president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English.
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Regie Routman
Becoming a Reader
y earliest memory of reading was seeing my mother quietly reading,
day after day, in the pale light of late afternoon. I envied her that
zone of peacefulness and privacy and knew not to disturb that sacred time.
She tried to invite me into that world by insisting I read old-fashioned
classics such as When Knighthood Was In Flower, first
published in 1898. She handpicked similar masterworks
at our local public library, and I rebuked and resisted
every one of them. I have no childhood memories of
learning to read in school, of being read to at home,
or of enjoying reading. Other than romantic comic
books, which I savored well into my teens, reading was
an unpleasant chore, something that had to be done
whether one liked it or not.
I was 15 before I formed my first unforgettable reading memory. It stems
from an overnight with my grandmother. She read aloud Gone With the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell with such emotion that I was spellbound. I finally got
it! So this was what reading and hearing great literature could do for the mind
and spirit—transport me to another era, enable me to enter the fascinating
and complicated lives of different characters, prompt me to rethink my own
hopes and desires and become so thoroughly lost in a riveting story that time
stopped and nothing else mattered. I was drawn in to savor the sounds and
rhythms of well-crafted language—and I was hooked for life.
I became an avid and discriminating reader. Reading became as
necessary to me as breathing. Today, I read for many reasons including
relaxation, curiosity, and to learn about the world around me—I want to be a
knowledgeable citizen. How do I find the books I most enjoy? I rely on the
Sunday New York Times Book Review, friends’ and colleagues’ raves, bookstore
recommendations, book sale browsing, and books written by authors I
love. Of all the possessions in my home, I am most proud of my walls of
books, the books I buy because I have to have them—not just to read but to
touch, rearrange, revisit, cherish, and lend. Those books define me—fiction,
nonfiction, professional books—and say much about who I am, what I value,
and what kind of reader I am.
Reading continues to keep me grounded, relaxed, invigorated, and
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joyful. My mother would be proud. I spend many a late afternoon and
evening lost in the pages of a book. I bring my reading interests and
passions into the schools where I teach. I
always introduce myself to students through
great books. I choose the books for students
as carefully as I choose for myself and base my
A great book has
choices on their interests and curiosity. “I’m so
once again worked
excited, kids. Have I got a book for you!”
its charm and
I open the book and begin to read aloud.
Soon the room goes silent and I can see that
captured listeners’
students are engaged. A great book has once
hearts and minds.
again worked its charm and captured listeners’
hearts and minds. And afterwards, as always, I
hear a chorus, “Will you read it again? Can I
read it?” The reading magic has begun, and it
is contagious.
•••••
b
Regie Routman is a longtime teacher and author of many books and articles for teachers and leaders. She
has been a teacher of all the elementary grades, a Reading Recovery teacher, a reading specialist, a teacher
of students with learning disabilities, a mentor teacher, literacy coach, and national leader for improving
schoolwide literacy achievement. Currently, she conducts weeklong residencies in diverse schools in the
United States and Canada where she does demonstration teaching and coaching in classrooms, most of
which have large numbers of English language learners and struggling readers. Her latest book is Read,
Write, Read: Breakthrough Strategies for Schoolwide Literacy Success from ASCD. See Regie’s website
(www.regieroutman.org) for her “What I’m Reading” blog, her books and resources, and her professional
development offerings including the video- and web-based virtual residency series on reading and writing:
Regie Routman in Residence: Transforming Our Teaching. Regie lives with her husband Frank in Seattle, close
to her son, daughter-in-law, and darling granddaughters.
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Teresa Mlawer
My True Sanctuary: A Bookstore With Soul
rowing up in Cuba, I did not have access to many books at home
or at school, but there was no lack of stories flowing at home. Both
my parents were born storytellers. My mother told my sister and me
many stories about Cuba—the struggle for independence from Spain and
her own struggle, after losing both her parents at
a young age, to raise her two younger sisters and
keep their small family together. She was a woman
of strength and courage, and she passed those values
on to us.
My father, on the other hand, regaled us with
stories about Spain, his native country. When he
was only 13 years old, he journeyed by sea to Cuba
and, with pluck and courage, survived his younger
years there and ultimately succeeded in his
new country. From his vivid imagination,
he created brave, strong characters—often
My father’s stories
young girls and women—who triumphed
transformed my
in one adventure after another. I treasured
my father’s stories the most because they
small world, and
transformed my small world, and invited me
invited me to
to discover different lands, distant places, and
discover different
invisible friends without having to leave the
comfort and safety of my own room.
lands, distant
Sunday mornings were special. Even
places, and invisible
though we already knew how to read, my
father delighted in entertaining my sister and
friends without
me with the comics section of the Sunday
having to leave the
newspaper. He also encouraged us to share
comfort and safety
our own stories with him and my mother.
These sweet memories have remained with
of my own room.
me for more than 65 years.
School was also a sanctuary. Even though
I did not have access to many books at
school, I had wise and dedicated teachers
b
176
who instilled in me a love of learning. I never wanted to miss a day of school,
not even when I was sick—so I often pretended that I was not! School was a
magical place, second only to my home.
It was not until I was 17, when I arrived in the United States, that I
discovered books. Driven by a desire to learn English, I began to devour them.
Lucky for me, I landed my first job in publishing more than 50 years ago,
and it was love at first sight. I fell in love with the written and spoken word.
I became a passionate reader of adult, children’s, and young adult literature. I
have read thousands of children’s and YA books and continue to do so today.
My real transformation came when I joined Lectorum in 1976. It was at
this Spanish bookstore, located on 14th Street in Manhattan, that I discovered
my true sanctuary: a bookstore with a soul.
The books that rested on old-fashioned wooden shelves represented
the dreams and aspirations of so many talented writers. I felt a great sense
of responsibility to both the writers and the readers, thinking of myself as
the ambassador of these wonderful books. Without a doubt, my years at the
Lectorum Bookstore were not only the happiest of my life, but also the ones
that made me the person I am today.
•••••
Teresa Mlawer began her career in publishing in 1963. She was at the helm of operations at Lectorum Publications
from 1976 until her retirement in 2012. Among her many functions at Lectorum, Mlawer served as editorial director,
where she oversaw the acquisition, selection, and editorial development of Spanish-language books for children
and young adults. A pioneer in Spanish-language publishing in the United States, Mlawer has translated over
300 children’s books from English to Spanish. She has dedicated her life to the cause of literacy, especially among
Hispanic children in the U.S. and Latin America. As a well-known specialist in children’s literature in Spanish, she
works with publishers, educators, and librarians to bring the best authentic literature to children. She is a strong and
vocal advocate for Latino authors and illustrators in the United States. In 2012, she was selected by the Federation
of Spanish Publishers from Argentina as one of the 50 most influential people in the Spanish publishing world.
For the last three years, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of ConTextos, an international nonprofit
organization that works with under-resourced schools in El Salvador.
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b
Charles R. Smith, Jr.
About Me
Growing up where I grew
my young eyes knew
that blood red bandanas
represented Pirus
while Crips sported blue
and when the two met
sometimes bullets flew
piercing bystanders
with innocent eyes
poking holes of pain
inside family’s lives.
But while some squeezed triggers
and others got high
I turned to books
to let my mind fly,
I turned to books
for joy and inspiration
to be something in life
and avoid incarceration.
Books provided hope
along with education
allowed me to dream
and provided motivation
to express myself
through words on a page,
allowed me to laugh
178
cry
and vent rage,
allowed me to love
hate
and engage
myself in the world
and all that I see
each book provided
to me
entry
to a wide opened world
of adventure and mystery,
science fiction
biography
sports and history.
Great men
great women
great stories
great lives
made great impressions
on my young hungry eyes
inspiring me to dream
of lands across the sea
like Hawaii
Japan
France
and Italy,
been there
been there
been there
done that,
Aloha
Koniichi wa
and Bonjour in a beret hat.
I’ve scuba-dived with sharks
sea turtles and fish
got a tattoo of dolphins
flipping around my wrist
I’ve soaked in jacuzzis
under moonlight
in the crisp autumn breeze
of an Arizona night.
I’ve touched stars from ships
that sailed Caribbean waters
I’ve kissed the hand
of Ambassador’s daughters
I’ve shaken hands with presidents
and perhaps the best
b-ball player, Michael Jordan
and I must confess
that I’ve also met
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Dr. J and Wilt
Chamberlain
Shaq
and Kevin Garnett.
I’ve taken bullet trains
ridden European rails
hopped metros in Paris
surfed waves under sails
blowing in the breeze
billowing blue sky
on tropical seas.
I’ve changed time zones
six times in one day,
smacked volleyballs on beaches
in sunny L.A.,
sank jump shots
and splashed
nets on Maui
on a ship
against
a crew
from Bali.
So many sights and sounds
that I can write down
of the life that I’ve lived
from the books that I found
filled with words
that planted the seed
of dreams for me
when I chose to read.
•••••
Charles R. Smith, Jr., is an award-winning author, photographer, and poet with over 30 books to his credit. He
won a Coretta Scott King Award for his photographs accompanying the Langston Hughes poem, “My People,”
and a Coretta Scott King Honor Author Award for his biography on Muhammad Ali, Twelve Rounds to Glory.
Many of his books have also garnered reluctant reader awards, proving that kids who don’t like to read, do
like to read his books. Charles R. Smith, Jr., was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He currently lives in
Poughkeepsie, New York, with his wife Gillian, and their three kids, Sabine, Adrian, and Sebastian. You can find
him on the web at www.charlesrsmithjr.com.
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Joanne Yatvin
Dancing in the Library
iss Lehlbach, our grade school librarian, invited our class into a world
of fantasy when she introduced us to delightful characters we would
not have met on our own: Mary Poppins, the Wizard of Oz, Dr. Doolittle,
and the Hobbit, to name a few.
For me, the best part of knowing Miss Lehlbach
was being one of her Library Helpers who checked
out books after school and loaded the returned books
onto carts. When it was time to close the library for the
day, she would shut the door and pull down the shades.
Then the fun began. She taught us songs, recitations,
and the Elephant Dance, in which we climbed on
chairs, danced over tables, and called on others to join
us. I still remember the
words and the dance.
Because I trusted Miss Lehlbach, I asked
Our librarian
her to recommend books for me. At first,
she found my favorites—books about girls
introduced us to
who were growing up to be strong and
imaginary stories
independent women. But after a while she
led me to a variety of books I would never
and wonderful
have chosen on my own, and they never
characters that we
disappointed me.
would not have met
Over the years, my personal bookcase has
grown very crowded. At times, I’ve had to
on our own.
move some books to others shelves or give
them away. But I still keep a special place close
by for my favorites, which I return to again
and again—my tribute to Miss Lehlbach.
•••••
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A past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, Joanne Yatvin, Ph.D., has more than 40 years
experience as a classroom teacher and school administrator. Yatvin is a supervisor of student teachers and
former adjunct professor at the Portland State University Graduate School of Education. She is also the author
of English-Only Teachers in Mixed-Language Classrooms: A Survival Guide, A Room with a Differentiated View:
How to Serve All Children as Individual Learners, and Teaching Writing in Mixed-Language Classrooms: Powerful
Writing Strategies for All Students.
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Inspiration
Nothing can equal the power of an adult who
puts the right book in a child’s hands at the
right time.
~Nancie Atwell
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Dorothy S. Strickland
The Gift of Reading: Pass it On
“
orothy, I’m so glad to see you. I saved a book especially for you.” It was
the voice of Mrs. Luex, the librarian at the neighborhood branch library
that I visited regularly in Union, New Jersey, where I grew up. She reached
down under her desk and pulled out that special book and handed it to me
with a smile that seemed to say that she had been
waiting all week just for me. The library in our part of
town was located in a storefront nestled among several
small businesses, including a delicatessen, dry cleaners,
and drug store. At age 11, I was old enough to walk
to the library all by myself and Mrs. Luex had become
one of my favorite people in the whole wide world.
She was perfectly round—round body, round face, and
hair that was pulled back neatly into a perfectly round
bun. She was always welcoming and pleasant. To think that she would select a
book just for me made me feel very special. Whatever she selected would be
read along with the books I selected on my own.
Born into an African American working class family with parents who
migrated from the South with limited educational opportunities, I don’t recall
ever seeing either of them reading a book. My father, however, read the daily
tabloid newspaper with enthusiasm, and often quoted portions of it to the
rest of us. Fortunately, my parents indulged my love of reading and seemed to
know how important it was to me. Little did any of us know that I would one
day become president of the International Reading Association and the State
of New Jersey Professor of Reading at Rutgers University.
My love of reading and my passion to share that love with others have
been at the center of my professional life. My career began as a fourthgrade teacher. I loved reading aloud to my students each day after lunch.
I purposely selected chapter books. The end of each chapter always left
them wanting more. At no other time during the day did I have everyone’s
complete attention. According to our annual standardized tests and my own
accounts as well, most of my students prospered in reading. Yet, there were
two, I felt, who were not progressing as well as they could.
This prompted me to return to school for a master’s degree in reading
disabilities and later led to my appointment as a Learning Disabilities
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Specialist. All of this made me more determined to foster a love of
reading as I worked toward improving my students’ ability to read. Later,
I became involved in teacher education and wrote extensively on reading
education with an emphasis on sharing books with children at home
and at school. My research and writing on the importance of family
storybook reading became an important part of my presentations to
parents and as well as educators.
My love of reading is, no doubt, grounded in
my love of story. To this day, I find few things as
To think that she
engrossing as a good novel. The feeling of fear
would select a
and suspense when the protagonist is in trouble
and the relief that comes when all is well are as
book just for me
powerful as real-life experiences.
made me feel
Though much of my reading today consists
of reading to learn and to keep informed,
very special.
reading for pleasure holds a very special place
in my life. It is, indeed, a refuge—a place where
I can have a great time inside my own head.
Reading has broadened my world, made me
more reflective in my beliefs, and expanded my personal universe.
Many years after my childhood experiences at the library, I became
a professor of children’s literature in a teacher education program. One
evening, I told my students about my early experiences with Mrs. Luex, my
childhood librarian, and my students shared similar stories of their own. At
this point in my life, I was both an experienced teacher and a parent of three.
Yet it suddenly occurred to me that Mrs. Luex had, no doubt, made many
other children feel just as exceptional. What a gift it is to make someone feel
special and encouraged. There is no better way for me to repay that gift than
to pass it on.
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•••••
Dorothy S. Strickland, Ph.D., is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Professor of Education Emerita at Rutgers University. A
former classroom teacher and reading specialist, she is a past president of the International Reading Association and
the IRA Reading Hall of Fame. She received IRA’s Outstanding Teacher Educator of Reading Award and the National
Council of Teachers of English Outstanding Educator in the Language Arts. Strickland was a member of the panel that
produced Becoming a Nation of Readers, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, the National Early Literacy
Panel, and the Validation Committee for the Common Core State Standards. Her many publications include Learning
About Print in Preschool Settings; Bridging the Literacy Achievement Gap, Grades 4-12; and The Administration and
Supervision of Reading Programs. Strickland is a member of the New Jersey State Board of Education.
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P. David Pearson
Pay It Forward
went to a one-room schoolhouse in the wide open spaces of the
Sacramento Valley in post-World War II California. In 1947, when
I started first grade, all 42 of us—from first graders through eighth
graders—were taught by Mrs. Millsap, a matronly lady in her early sixties,
who was driven daily to and from the school by a
retired Mr. Millsap in their sporty 1936 Model A
coupe. The rest of us arrived by foot, horseback,
and even tractor.
That year, I was one of six students in first
grade, along with four girls and one other boy—
Denny. Denny was my comrade in games and
adventures in the rice paddies that stretched out
along the prairie between our houses.
When Mrs. Millsap got around to the first graders (the second day of
school), she handed each of us a copy of the first pre-primer (Skip Along,
I think, was the name). It featured Alice and Jerry—a duo not unlike
Dick and Jane. I listened in awe as Mrs. Millsap and two of my fellow
first graders took turns reading from the book. I was dumbfounded! I
hadn’t, until that moment, realized that I couldn’t read. As the baby of
a family of six children, I had been read to frequently (my mom, Lora,
and my older sisters, Patty and Joyce, took turns), but I had never realized
that other children my age could read. The cruelest blow of all was that
Denny was one of those two readers. Think of it—we had raced one
another through rice paddies, and, all the while, he had been able to read!
I arrived home that day in tears. My first question to my mother was,
“How come Denny can read, and I can’t?” “David,” she replied, “Don’t
you worry. All of your brothers and sisters learned to read, and you will,
too. Trust me, David. You just have to give it a little more time.”
I trusted my mother completely, so I gave it a little time. I did learn
to read the little stories featuring Alice, Jerry, Jip (their dog), and their
friends and family. By November, I had started to outpace Denny. By the
end of that school year, I was reading a library book or two (and even
sneaking books into my bed at night), while Denny was still struggling to
decipher the tales of Alice and Jerry.
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It wasn’t until some 20 years later, when I
was a classroom teacher myself, that I finally
figured out why Denny was ahead of me at the
The skills I got
start. It was Denny’s second year in first grade!
that year as a first
He had memorized the pre-primer stories—
word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, storygrader laid the
by-story (he didn’t even have to look at the
foundation for a
print!). But after the three pre-primers, when
words looked more alike and memory couldn’t
life of research
carry the day, Denny got stuck, and he never
and writing.
did get through the primer or the first reader,
even in that second year in first grade.
I have had an intellectually rich life as a
result of the gift I got from Alice, Jerry, and
Mrs. Millsap in first grade. I’ve been able to
study how teachers can scaffold students in
learning how to read, understand, and think about text. I wasn’t able to
help Denny (although you shouldn’t feel too sorry for him—I heard he
did rather well as a vegetable farmer), but the skills I got that year as a
first grader laid the foundation for a life of research and writing that has
aimed to extend (pay forward) that gift of reading to all students.
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•••••
P. David Pearson, Ph.D., is a professor in language and literacy at the Graduate School of Education at the
University of California, Berkeley, where he served as Dean from 2001–2010. He has spent the last half-century
conducting research to improve the ways students comprehend and think about the texts they read. Among
his most popular ideas is the Gradual Release of Responsibility, which he claims to have learned initially in
the process of raising his two children and refined trying to teach reading comprehension strategies to young
students. In 2012, the Literacy Research Association established the P. David Pearson Scholarly Influence Award
to be given annually to honor research that exerts a longterm influence on literacy practices and/or policies.
He is the founding editor of the Handbook of Reading Research, now in its fourth volume; he edited Reading
Research Quarterly and the Review of Research in Education; and he has served on the Editorial Review Board
for some 20 educational journals.
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Donalyn Miller
Reading Sent Me to the Principal’s Office
he only time I had to go to the principal’s office was because of
reading. My mother claims this isn’t precisely true, but it’s my story,
so I get to tell it how I want.
A precocious reader, I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read.
Knowing how to read by first grade didn’t seem like
a problem to my mother and me, but my teachers
thought differently. Initially enthusiastic about school,
I was bored with the phonics worksheets and bland
textbook stories that made up our school’s reading
program. In third grade, my teacher, Mrs. Shugart,
introduced us to a new reading activity—SRA
cards. Stored inside a large box, each color-coded
card included a reading selection on one side and
comprehension questions on the back. Mrs. Shugart tested each of us,
determining where we should start in the SRA program, and for an hour
every day, my classmates and I read the SRA cards and answered questions.
I didn’t mind reading SRA cards. I knew I was a good reader and also a
little bit of a show-off. I don’t remember where I started in Mrs. Shugart’s
box, but I burned through those cards. Every day, when I turned in my
questions, Mrs. Shugart clucked her tongue and scrutinized my work,
“Three cards today? Are you sure you’re really reading them?” I stood at her
desk while she checked my answers against the key. If I missed even one
question, she would send me back to my desk to repeat a card—insisting
that I read too quickly.
Eventually, I finished the last card in the box. Mrs. Shugart didn’t know
what to do with me during SRA time, so she made me sit with other kids
and help them read their cards. I hated it. One day, Mrs. Shugart returned
from the office to find me standing at the chalkboard, chalk in hand,
writing the answers to SRA cards on the board. With a gasp, she snatched
me by the arm and marched me down to the principal’s office. The
secretary called my mother.
No-nonsense about behavior and grades, my mother was unhappy
about getting a call from school. Waiting for Mrs. Shugart, Mom asked me
what happened, “You were cheating? What were you thinking, Donalyn?”
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While she talked with Mrs. Shugart and our principal, I sat outside the
office in agony—imagining increasingly horrific punishments.
After an eternity, my mother emerged from the principal’s office and
escorted me to the car. I kept my head down and my mouth shut. As we
pulled out of the school parking lot, my mother sighed. “Did you know
that Mrs. Shugart was standing there for three minutes before you noticed
her? She says that you gave out at least ten answers and she has to skip those
assignments with the other kids now.”
“Mom, I don’t think the other kids will mind skipping those cards,” I
said, “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Well, I asked if you could move to the fourth-grade reading class, but
everyone nixed that suggestion. We came up with a different plan. Every day
during reading time, you will go down to the library and help Mrs. Potter.”
And that’s what I did. Every day during SRA time, for the rest of third
grade and into fourth grade, I worked as Mrs. Potter’s library aide. Looking
back, I recognize that spending an hour a day with Mrs. Potter permanently
influenced my reading life.
I don’t remember what Mrs. Potter looked
like, but I can still hear her voice in my head,
I can learn about
“Horses? You like horses? Have you met
anything, travel
Marguerite Henry? Let’s start with King of
the Wind.” After King of the Wind, I read every
anywhere, ask my
Marguerite Henry book in the library—Misty
own questions,
of Chincoteague, Brighty of Grand Canyon, and
White Stallion of Lipizza. I read Anna Sewell’s
and seek my own
Black Beauty, too.
answers because
When I ran out of horse books, Mrs. Potter
steered me toward other animal books like
I read.
Old Yeller by Frank Gipson, Rascal by Sterling
North, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The
Yearling. Every book Mrs. Potter gave me
launched another adventure.
Each time I returned a book, Mrs. Potter
spent a few minutes chatting with me about the story, asking what I
learned from the book and what parts I liked. Under her guidance, I read
a staggering pile of books—Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, The
Borrowers by Mary Norton, most of the Newbery winners, and selections
from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. To me, Mrs. Potter was a
magician—able to find a book that matched any random interest of mine.
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187
I took reading for granted before my two years with Mrs. Potter. I
enjoyed reading, but I didn’t grasp its power until she showed me. From
then on, my education belonged to me because I loved to read. I can learn
about anything, travel anywhere, ask my own questions, and seek my own
answers because I read. Thanks to Mrs. Potter’s wisdom and guidance, my
life has been one long reading adventure—rich and exciting and mine.
•••••
Donalyn Miller has worked with a wide variety of upper elementary and middle school students and currently
teaches fifth grade at O.A. Peterson Elementary in Fort Worth, Texas. Donalyn’s books, The Book Whisperer
and Reading in the Wild, reflect on her journey to become a reading teacher and describe how she inspires
and motivates her middle school students to read 40 or more books a year and develop good lifelong reading
habits. Donalyn currently facilitates the community blog The Nerdy Book Club and co-writes a monthly column
for Scholastic’s Principal-to-Principal Newsletter. Her articles about teaching and reading have appeared
in publications such as Education Week Teacher, The Reading Teacher, Educational Leadership, and the
Washington Post.
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Patricia A. Edwards
Miss Pat’s Saturday School
was known in my neighborhood as the child who talked just like a
book. I enjoyed reading and practicing what I read on everyone who
would listen—and that included my father, mother, grandmother, sisters,
neighborhood children, and guests who visited my home. I even read to
my dolls and dog when everyone else said they were
tired of listening to me read. Of course, my dolls and
dog were always a very attentive audience.
I looked forward to attending Sunday school
every week because I was the best reader in
my class. I always volunteered to read. If a child
mispronounced a word, I quickly corrected him. He
would say, “Thank you, smarty pants.” I would smile
broadly and say, “I’m simply trying to help. I want to
become a teacher one day and show people how to read. Reading is very
important, you know. If you learn how to read when you are young, you
will become an excellent reader when you are older. That’s what my Mama
and Grandmamma told me. Didn’t your Mama and Grandmamma tell you
that, too?”
One day in Sunday school, I learned a different lesson: Being a smarty
pants wasn’t always a wise thing to do. Mrs. Medlock, my Sunday school
teacher, mispronounced a word from the Bible during a Sunday school
lesson and I quickly corrected her. Mrs. Medlock got really mad and told my
mother and grandmother that I was a “naughty little girl” and that I had “bad
manners.” I explained to my mother and grandmother, “I am very upset and
confused because I thought that I was helping Mrs. Medlock by correcting
her and saying the word was not Joshaway, but Joshua. I feel like Mrs.
Medlock shouldn’t have told you I was a naughty little girl, when I was really
trying to help her.” My mother and grandmother said, “Pat, there’s a time
and a place for everything.” They told me to keep in mind, even though I
was very young, that many of the adults in my community and church didn’t
read that well, but they were highly respected. Correcting Mrs. Medlock in
front of the entire Sunday school class was not the right time and place. I
quickly recognized that if I was going to become a teacher, I should probably
focus on children rather than adults.
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At seven years old, I had an excellent plan for how I was going to become a
teacher. My Daddy owned a barber shop that was in our backyard, which gave
me opportunity to practice my teaching skills on the boys when they came to
get a haircut. The song “Where the Boys Are” truly characterized my house.
Every Saturday, Daddy cut hair from 7:00 am to 9:30 pm. I sold my parents on
the idea that I could have a Saturday School from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. What
really got me excited was that I had a very captive audience. As boys came
through the gate that led into my backyard, I would greet them. “Hi, boys!
Welcome to the Edwards Barber Shop and to Pat’s Saturday School.” The boys
would often reply, “I didn’t come to your house to go to any Saturday School,
I came to get a haircut.” With a twinkle in my eye, I would say, “Yes, you came
to get a haircut and to go to Pat’s Saturday School.”
For those boys who were unwilling to attend my Saturday school, I
would say, “Daddy, this little boy told me that he wasn’t going to come to my
school.” My Daddy would say, “Son, can you read?” “No, Sir.” “Well I think
that it would be a great idea for you to attend Pat’s school.” With my bright
smile, I would say, “I told you so; you have to come to my school. And, if you
don’t, not only will I tell my Daddy, I’m going to tell your Mama! I know
your Mama would want you to learn what
I’m teaching because she wants you to do well
in school, right? Your Mama has signed the
slip for you to attend my Saturday school.” I
I enjoyed reading
showed all of the boys very quickly the same
and practicing what
permission slip.
I read on everyone
who would listen . . .
I even read to my
Mrs. Flossie Brown said that Winthrop has
permission to come to Pat’s Saturday school.
Thank you.
If they still resisted, I had another back-up
plan. “If you don’t come to my school, my
Daddy is going to cut all of your hair off. You
are going to be a baldy.”
Well, I was an excellent recruiter and
got my captive audience every Saturday. I
read books, I taught the alphabet and how
to count, and I had a full curriculum. Oftentimes, I would repeat what I had
taught the previous week. If the boys whined, I’d say, “I am reinforcing what
I taught. My teacher said that reinforcing what you teach is a good thing.” I
even kept progress reports on each of the boys who attended my school.
dolls and dog.
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190
Dear Mrs. Brown,
Winthrop is making great progress in my school.
Patricia Edwards,
Saturday School Teacher
Years later, many of the boys told me how helpful those Saturday lessons
were. Even though I was the youngest uncertified teacher in Dougherty
County, I’m proud to say that at the tender age of seven, I experienced the
real power of teaching.
•••••
Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D., a member of the Reading Hall Fame is a Distinguished Professor of Language and
Literacy in the Department of Teacher Education, and a Senior University Outreach Fellow at Michigan State
University. She is an internationally recognized expert in parent involvement, home, school, community
partnerships, multicultural literacy, early literacy, and family/intergenerational literacy, especially among poor
and minority children. She has served as a member of the IRA board of directors, as the first African American
president of the Literacy Research Association, and as president of the International Reading Association.
Dr. Edwards is the co-author and author of numerous books including A Path to Follow: Learning to Listen to
Parents, Bridging Literacy and Equity: The Essential Guide to Social Equity Teaching, and Change Is Gonna Come:
Transforming Literacy for African American Students, which won the prestigious Edward B. Fry Book Award. She
is also the author of the forthcoming Achieve! Aha Moments, Straight Talk, and Practical Solutions for Helping
Students of Color Succeed and Different Times, Different Parents, Different Strategies for Engaging Our Essential
Partners. Additionally, Dr. Edwards has been honored with the Albert J. Kingston Service Award and the Jerry
Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award.
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& Irene C. Fountas
Gay Su Pinnell
The Nourishing Power of Literacy:
The Right of Every Child
A
s children, we enjoyed the right of literacy—and, in many ways, may have
taken it for granted as we knew it in those early years. It was only later
that we became writers and began to develop our professional commitment
around one goal—to help all children live literate lives so
they could enjoy the exquisite literacy treasures we were
afforded as children.
Gay: I am the only child of two teachers. My parents
came from farming families. My grandfather could not
read or write. The books in our home were mostly for
adults because there was no bookstore in our small rural
town in New Mexico. The hardware store sold a few
Gay Su Pinnell
children’s books, and books for children occupied two
shelves of our one-room public library. Nevertheless, I
had Nancy Drew, Black Beauty, and Andrew Lang’s Fairy
Books from the library along with the adult books.
Books were woven into family life. Before every road
trip, I was in charge of selecting books—50% nonfiction
related to the place we were going and 50% fiction of
my choice. My father and I would read and discuss the
books during the journey.
Irene C. Fountas
Teaching was my natural career choice and teaching
reading became an inevitable direction. Now, in both my professional and
personal life, books are an essential resource. I read electronically but still
treasure actual books in print. I reread old favorites and rejoice when I
discover a new favorite, especially if the writer has other books I can explore.
I never board a plane or go to bed without at least one book in my hand—
usually more. I find joy and sustenance in the act of reading and I know
always will.
Irene’s mother, Catherine Fountas, remains my inspiration. At an
advanced age, she is an avid reader, voraciously consuming more books
weekly than her family can find for her. What a difference reading can make
at every phase of life!
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Irene: Though I don’t remember having books in my home, I do remember
how Mom and Dad tried to plant the seeds of literacy for their six
demanding children with the hope that they would pursue education to the
fullest. Dad ordered a few bright orange Childcraft books from the Sunday
magazine section of the newspaper. His next instinct was that we should all
read the encyclopedia to become knowledgeable, so he signed up with the
door-to-door salesman to buy one volume one at a time. We eventually had
many of the letters, but we never did acquire the complete set. One evening,
Dad visited each of us at bedtime and presented us with a small, thick,
child-sized black book and told us it was filled with good stories and that we
should read the whole thing to learn a lot—it was the Holy Bible.
When I was old enough to qualify for a public library card, I went there
frequently, excited about the world of books that had opened to me. I fell in
love with fantasy and mystery books—especially Nancy Drew—though I must
admit that in school I found even the characters Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot
delightful because I had something to read and
think about.
Today I gather books—a collection of
treasures—to enjoy every spare moment I have.
Marie Clay . . .
And, as Gay recounts, she and I ponder how to
opened the doors
keep my mom supplied with continuous stacks
of books as she consumes more books than
of literacy to millions
both of us and offers us a running critique of
of children around
our choices. Somehow, I think she is making
the world through
up for the reading opportunities she missed
while she was tending to the demands of her
Reading Recovery.
six children.
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Gay and Irene: Our childhoods were very
different—but, in one way, they were alike. We
both developed a love and an appreciation for
literacy that later transformed into a mission
that would guide us the rest of our lives—bringing children and literacy
together in a joyful and satisfying journey of fulfillment.
A watershed in our thinking occurred when we encountered Marie
Clay’s theory of the child as a constructive literacy learner. In a little book
titled Reading:The Patterning of Complex Behavior, Clay wrote eloquently
of the remarkable learning that takes place as children become aware of
literacy events while adults seize the opportunity to interact with that
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awareness. We learned about the power of conversation as a model for
teaching interactions through which the new and unknown becomes
familiar in an ever-spiraling process. Ever more clearly, we could see
children as problem-solvers and doers, always working toward more
complex ways of responding. These intellectual ideas engaged us and called
to us to investigate.
Marie Clay, who created a powerful early literacy intervention,
incorporated everything she had learned from an in-depth examination
of research and generated a new conversation about the construction of
literacy and, ultimately, about teaching the hardest-to-teach children. Her
new conversation opened the doors of literacy to millions of children
around the world through Reading Recovery—and inform the three
foundational points of our life work: 1) a focus on readers/writers and their
behaviors; 2) attention to selecting high quality texts for different purposes;
and 3) a commitment to elevating teacher expertise. We are ever grateful to
those who immersed us in literacy in our early lives, and those who have so
richly informed our professional work over the years, and especially to our
colleagues—the teachers who make this vision come alive in their work
every day with children.
•••••
Gay Su Pinnell is professor emerita in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. She has
worked extensively in clinical tutoring and early intervention for young struggling readers. She received the
International Reading Association’s Albert J. Harris Award for research in reading difficulties, the Ohio Governor’s
Award for contributions to literacy education, and the Charles A. Dana Foundation Award, given for pioneering
contributions in the fields of health and education. She is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame.
Irene C. Fountas is currently professor and director of the Center for Reading Recovery and Literacy Collaborative at
Lesley University where she focuses on the professional development of school leaders and coaches implementing
comprehensive approaches to literacy education. She is also engaged in conducting research and implementing
development projects related to improving teacher expertise, teacher leadership, and systemic change.
Together, Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas have coauthored numerous publications related to classroom literacy,
literacy intervention, leadership, and professional development, including Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for
All Children, Guiding Readers & Writers, Grades 3-6, Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency, Grades K–8: Thinking,
Talking, and Writing about Reading and, more recently, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works and Genre
Study: Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books.
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Kevin K. Green
Lighting the Way for Others
y third-grade teacher, Mrs. Sheneman died recently at the venerable age
of 92. As described in her obituary, “For more than 25 years she taught
second, third, or fourth grade. She had high expectations for each of her students
and loved them dearly.”
I was the only African American student in my
elementary school until I was in fourth grade. I was most
fortunate to have an elementary school teacher like Mrs.
Sheneman who reached out to me and helped me hone
both my reading skills and my passion for reading. Mrs.
Sheneman, along with my mom, Mrs. Lettie C. Green, read
to me constantly and introduced me to the world of literacy.
Mrs. Sheneman always expected the most of all of
her students and we left her classroom inspired and fully
confident in our own ability to read, write, and learn.
The news of her death saddened me but it also brought
back happy memories of my eight-year-old self and the joy
of her nurturing classroom. Mrs. Sheneman helped make
me an avid reader. I started reading all the time on my
own—especially comic books such as Superman,The Flash,
and Richie Rich. Later, I read science fiction authored by
Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Frank Herbert, Jr.
These critical literacy and learning experiences
Mrs. Sheneman
ultimately led me to pursue a career in engineering and
technology research, inspired, in part, by my early enchantment with science
fiction and fantasy books. I know that I owe my current career success to both
my nurturing family and my superb and loving teacher, Mrs. Sheneman. A good
teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others. Thank you,
Mrs. Sheneman, for lighting the way for me.
•••••
Kevin K. Green holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and has worked as a computer vision scientist, an educational
technology entrepreneur, and a high school math teacher. Among his publications are “Best Practices on How Teachers
Can Instill Confidence and Competence in Math Students,” a chapter in Expectations in Education: Readings on High
Expectations, Effective Teaching, and Student Achievement, edited by his father Robert L. Green, and as co-author with
his dad of Expect the Most—Provide the Best, which explores how high expectations, innovation, and digital technology
can reduce the achievement gap.
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Jan Richardson
How Reading Changed One Boy’s Life—and Mine
eading didn’t really change my life until I saw it change the life of
a child.
Marcus was a quiet boy who lived with his mother in a shelter for
abused women. Because he was the weakest reader in his first-grade class,
he became one of my Reading Recovery students.
When I explained to his mother that I was going
to work with him one-on-one every day, tears
filled her eyes. She clutched my arm, and with a
quivering voice, softly repeated, “Thank you, thank
you, thank you.”
Marcus knew his letters but couldn’t read
at all. Nevertheless, as we worked together, he
caught on quickly and grew in competence and
confidence. I sent books home with him every night so he could read
them with his mother.
One day, Marcus didn’t bring his books back.Visibly upset to the
point of tears, he explained that he had tucked the books under his
cot for safekeeping, but someone at the shelter had taken his book bag
during the night. I put my arm around his shoulder and assured him that
I would give him more books to take home. “Maybe the person who
took your books,” I said, “will become a good
reader just like you.”
A few weeks later, I learned that Marcus
What a blessing it is
and his mother were being moved to a
different shelter across town for their safety. I
to see lives changed
began to worry what his future would be if
forever by the
he couldn’t finish the program we had started,
develop a solid foundation of reading skills,
simple yet profound
and continue to grow as a confident reader.
joy of reading.
Marcus’ mother was worried, too; so worried
that she put him on public transportation
every day and sent him all the way across
Washington, D.C. so he could continue to
meet with me.
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Marcus eventually graduated from the program as a strong, motivated
reader. We had a small celebration and I gave him a book to keep. I’ll never
forget his ear-to-ear smile. That was the last time I saw Marcus. While I
may never see him again, I’m certain that learning to read changed his life
forever. The experience certainly changed mine.
Since then, I’ve taught hundreds (perhaps thousands) of struggling
readers, from ages 5 to 75. Each student has fueled my passion for
teaching reading. Each one reminds me what an honor it is to be a
teacher, what a privilege it is to work with struggling readers, and what a
blessing it is to see lives changed forever by the simple yet profound joy
of reading.
•••••
Jan Richardson, Ph.D., is a literacy consultant who travels throughout the United States training teachers and
providing classroom demonstrations on guided reading. A former classroom teacher (she has taught in every
grade, K–12), reading specialist, Reading Recovery teacher leader, and staff developer, Richardson is well
known for her practical, engaging presentations. Her book, The Next Step in Guided Reading, and DVDs, Next
Step Guided Reading in Action, provide teachers with practical suggestions and lesson plans for increasing the
power and impact of guided reading. She and co-author Maria Walther recently published a new assessment
kit, The Next Step Guided Reading Assessment for Grades K–2 and 3–6. Richardson is passionate about
motivating and accelerating all readers, especially those who struggle.
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Penny Kittle
Zookeeper, Spy, Teacher
became a reader three times. First, I ran a zoo with Dr. Seuss. I had
a spot in our living room next to the fireplace where I would tuck
myself away from my family. Knees against my chest, I curled into a ball
with If I Ran the Zoo, studying the letters and illustrations. I could hear
Mom’s voice in my ear—each letter a sound I
remembered—until suddenly there was meaning.
What a moment: I was reading.
I was unstoppable.
I searched the library to find books I could
crawl inside. I lived in stories and that was
enough—until I met Harriet the Spy. She taught
me to perch in my closet on boxes of toys behind
racks of clothes listening to kitchen conversations
through the closet wall. I recorded them in a notebook, just like her,
unraveling mysteries, watching my world. I even faked my way through
an eye exam so I could have glasses like hers. Harriet taught me to read
like a writer.
When I arrived at Oregon State University to become an elementary
teacher, I carried a rich reading life inside me. My mother and father
assured me that college was woven with rewards. I found one sooner than
I expected that first semester in a small room on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday afternoons: Political Science. My professor showed me philosophies
that had been rattling around for centuries. He tied impossibly difficult
texts together, creating connections across time. I read the seven theories
of mankind, as he called them, with wonder.
When I wrote my mid-term exam, the ideas suddenly braided
together—I left the exam smarter than when I entered it. I felt a rush of
power, of limitless possibility. That weekend I studied for all of my courses
differently. I sat with The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, a Norton
edition that included nearly 300 pages of textual appendices and literary
criticism. I read it all. I scribbled in the margins and layered my ideas onto
footnotes. The joy of thinking beside books ate up my evenings.
My professor returned my exam the following week and asked to
see me after class. He walked me out into a bright and warm afternoon,
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the spent leaves swirling at our feet as we surveyed campus. I had a mind
for politics, he told me. I glowed. He looked at me closely and said he
couldn’t believe I was going to waste it teaching the ABCs. I froze there
on the steps. How had he missed what was rumbling to life inside me? I
had to teach.
Every year I meet kids like Colton, a senior in my English class this
fall, who greeted me in September with a high-five and a challenge,
“We’ll get along fine, but I don’t read.” Living on a friend’s couch,
abandoned by both parents, he was in school to play football. I know
some good football stories, I countered. He
took The Blind Side with a smirk, but he
devoured it. His backpack slowly filled with
I spend my days
borrowed books. When our team missed the
playoffs, he spent his Saturdays reading—all
between the pages
day sometimes—because books tell truths
of good books and
and heal loneliness. Reading unwinds the
soul. Currently he’s studying war memoirs,
within the walls
preparing to leave for boot camp after
of a classroom
graduation. He’s read 60 books. Imagine the
lives he’s lived in just one year.
because it is where
My students need all that is layered in the
I live what I love
books I know as well as the ones I have yet
most completely.
to find. I seek what Aristotle called, “True to
life and yet more beautiful.” I read. I write.
I teach. I spend my days between the pages
of good books and within the walls of a
classroom because it is where I live what I
love most completely.
•••••
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Penny Kittle teaches high school English and is a K–12 literacy coach in North Conway, New Hampshire. She
is the author of six books, including Book Love and Write Beside Them. Kittle speaks throughout the United
States and internationally on empowering students to love reading and writing and to embrace independent
thinking through workshop teaching. She is the president of the Book Love Foundation, dedicated to helping
teachers build classroom libraries.
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Karen L. Mapp
Born to Read
ur three-story home at 420 Orchard Street in New Haven, Connecticut,
was where I became a reader. It is where I learned to read, imagine, love,
and dream. We shared our home with my great-grandmother, Maude Mapp,
as well as my paternal grandparents and two uncles. My brother and I were
wrapped in the love and support of three generations
of family, not to mention all of the cousins and
godparents who lived only a few blocks away.
My childhood neighborhood of the late 1950s
and early 60s was incredibly diverse for the times,
something I didn’t fully appreciate until I was much
older. Many neighbors were recent immigrants while
others had lived in New Haven for generations. It
was within this
context that I was exposed to the sights and
aromas of lands and people far beyond the
I was then, and
boundaries of New Haven.
Jeanne, one of my best friends, lived
remain so to this
above her parents’ store, China Trading. I
day, a night owl,
loved visiting Jeanne’s home. We would
wriggle in between the tight aisles in the
and can imagine
family store, filled with different Chinese
my poor Mom, as
spices and ingredients, various cooking
utensils and pots and pans, and rows of
excited as she was
books written in Chinese. Jeanne and I
by my love of books
would snuggle into a corner with one of
the books, looking at pictures of China and
and reading, also
the unfamiliar letters and characters. Jeanne
hoping that I would
would translate, bringing the pictures to
finally tire and go
life. We both loved to read, and we often
shared top honors in elementary school for
to sleep.
our reading and writing abilities.
When I asked my Mom how I learned
to read, she explained, “I taught you to
read when you were around two or three.”
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I remember how much I loved Dr. Seuss in those early years. I would squeal
with delight when a new Dr. Seuss book was added to my library, and I
relished seeing them lined up in my bookcase—the blue cover of The Cat in
the Hat, the yellow of One Fish,Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, the green and
white of Hop on Pop, and, of course, the bright orange cover of Green Eggs
and Ham. Apparently, I would wear out Mom every evening before bedtime,
asking her to read the Seuss books, especially Green Eggs and Ham, over and
over! I was then, and remain so to this day, a night owl, and can imagine
my poor Mom, as excited as she was by my love of books and reading, also
hoping that I would finally tire and go to sleep.
All of this home-based nurturing support helped me become a strong
and voracious reader at an early age. My mom has a picture of me at
around age four, setting up a classroom with my dolls and reading to my
attentive students. The picture forecasts my current vocation and love—
research and teaching.
•••••
Karen L. Mapp, Ed.D., is a senior lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
(HGSE) and the faculty director of the Education Policy and Management Master’s Program. She has
served as the co-coordinator of the Community Organizing and School Reform Research Project and
as a core faculty member in the Doctorate in Educational Leadership (EDLD) program at HGSE. She is a
founding member of the District Leaders Network on Family and Community Engagement, is a trustee
of the Hyams Foundation in Boston, and is on the board of the Institute for Educational Leadership
(IEL) in Washington, D.C. Mapp served as a consultant on family engagement to the United States
Department of Education in the Office of Innovation and Improvement. She is the author and co-author
of several articles and books about the role of families and community members in the work of student
achievement and school improvement including Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to FamilySchool Partnerships and A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform.
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Nancie Atwell
Secret Gardens
y father was a postal carrier. My mother waitressed. Except for the
World Book Encyclopedia, which my parents purchased one volume
at a time, ours was a house without books. The turning point in my life
as a reader came in fifth grade, when my sore throat and achy joints were
diagnosed as rheumatic fever. I spent most of the
school year off my feet and secluded in my bedroom.
Books, the library, and my mother saved me.
She began to scour the shelves of the local library
in search of anything she could imagine I might like.
At first, I read out of boredom. No child in 1961 had
a television, let alone a computer or telephone in
her bedroom. But then I began to fall in love—with
Ellen Tibbetts, Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona,
the March sisters, and the heroes and heroines in the Landmark biography
series. I escaped my room in the company
of Lotta Crabtree, Jenny Lind, Clara Barton,
Sam Adams, and Francis Marion the
All that quiet time
Swamp Fox, and vicariously experienced
their perseverance and courage.
reading stories
When my mother brought home The
chosen for me by
Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett,
I wrinkled my nose at its musty cover and
an adult who loved
put it at the bottom of the pile. When
me changed me
I ran out of books and was desperate, I
finally gave in and cracked it open. I read
forever—and granted
it straight through. It was my story but
me a passion for
not my story. I was Mary; I was Colin. I
stories and the
remember calling downstairs to my mother
and thanking her over and over again for
ability to read fast
the best book I ever read. “Can you get me
and with feeling.
some more like this one?” I begged. My
poor mother tried, but there is only one
Secret Garden. She renewed it four times for
me that winter and spring.
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All that quiet time reading stories chosen for me by an adult who loved
me changed me forever—and granted me a passion for stories and the
ability to read fast and with feeling. The novelist Graham Greene wrote,
“There is always one moment in childhood when a door opens and lets
the future in.” This was my moment. I became an English major and an
English teacher because I was—I am—crazy about books and reading.
Today at my school, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the faculty
does for every child what my mother did for me. We show students we
love them by looking after them as readers. We give them time every
day to curl up with intriguing stories. We scour the shelves of bookstores
and pore over reviews in search of titles that will delight them. And we
acknowledge the essential should in teaching reading: every student should
read for the pleasure of it.
While instructional fads will come and go, nothing can equal the
power of an adult who puts the right book in a child’s hands at the right
time. Teachers who cultivate diverse secret gardens—quiet spaces in the
school day when every student can venture into a story he or she loves—
understand that engaged reading now makes engaged readers for a lifetime.
•••••
A teacher since 1973, Nancie Atwell is the author of the classic In the Middle as well as Lessons That Change
Writers, a year’s worth of practical minilessons; Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons, a teaching
anthology that invites students to unpack and appreciate poetry; and The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids
Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers. In 1990, Atwell founded the Center for Teaching and
Learning, a K-8 demonstration school in Edgecomb, Maine, where, until her retirement in 2014, she taught
seventh- and eighth-grade writing, reading, and history. Her new book and DVD, Systems to Transform Your
Classroom and School, describes the culture of engagement and excellence Atwell and her colleagues created
by combining smart practice, innovative solutions to common problems of teaching, humane school policies,
and traditions that build community. Atwell is the first classroom teacher to receive the major research awards in
English language arts, the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize, and the NCTE David H. Russell Award. In 2011, she was
awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of New Hampshire and was named the River of Words Poetry
Teacher of the Year.
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Douglas Fisher
When I Became a Flashlight Reader
don’t remember much of my early reading life. I don’t have memories
of Dr. Seuss or bedtime stories or teacher read-alouds. My mom tells me
that I was a reasonably good reader, although not typically a motivated one.
She says that I read what my teachers asked me to read and not much more.
I’ve learned that’s fairly typical for a boy.
All that changed in fourth grade. While other
students might have experienced the so-called
fourth-grade slump, my teacher, Mr. Alaimo, jolted
me awake as a reader—invigorating my reading life at
this critical point in my development.
I vividly remember the day Mr. Alaimo asked
us to climb under our desks after he closed the
curtains and turned out the lights in our classroom.
He read with a flashlight from a book called The Children’s Story by James
Clavell, a rather simple story of a classroom that is taken over by a new
teacher following a war. It was the height of the Cold War and I lived in
San Diego. We all knew that our city was a main target for the Russians
because of the military resources. Mr.
Alaimo only read a few pages a day and
then discussed the ideas in the text with us
as we huddled under our desks. I remember
I trace my love of
when the students in the story decide to
reading directly
cut up the American flag so that each one
could have a piece. I was shocked. I’d never
back to a teacher—
read a book like this. There had to be more.
a teacher who knew
That’s when I became a flashlight reader.
just the right book
I was hooked on books. Late in the evening,
often with my covers over my head, I would
at just the right time
read (mostly scary) books with a flashlight.
and changed a life.
I remember reading Stephen King’s The
Shining by flashlight and scaring myself so
much I couldn’t sleep. But I kept reading so
that I could talk with Mike Stroehlein, my
best friend, about the book.
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Reading can also be very personal. I’ve certainly read a number of
emotionally charged books for my own growth that I don’t necessarily want to
talk about publicly. But more often than not, readers want to talk with others
about what they’ve read. I know I do. All of my friends know how important
Auggie, the main character in R. J. Palacio’s Wonder, has become to me.
I’ve grown a lot as a reader, moving way beyond scary stories. Today my
flashlight is attached to a Kindle, and my colleague Nancy Frey is the one
who has to hear most of my thinking about texts. But I trace my love of
reading directly back to a teacher—a teacher who knew just the right book
at just the right time and changed a life.
•••••
Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher
leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He began his education career as an early intervention
teacher and elementary school educator. He is the recipient of an Exemplary Leader Award from the NCTE
Conference on English Leadership as well as the Virginia Hamilton Essay Honor Award for 2014. He has
published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design as
well as books such as Better Learning Through Structured Teaching, Rigorous Reading, and Text Complexity:
Raising Rigor in Reading.
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Jennifer Serravallo
A Tale of Two Readers
grew up attending a Catholic elementary school. My teachers put
us in ability-based reading groups where we busily read passages in a
basal reader and answered questions. I learned that reading in school meant
completing tasks such as drawing character webs, making a timeline of a story,
or outlining an informational article (with Roman
numerals, capital and lower case letters, and numbers,
properly indented on each line).
On the other hand, my childhood summer
evenings were spent sitting side-by-side with my
siblings, listening to my father read aloud The Hobbit,
our minds wandering into the Middle Earth while we
applied ice packs to our sunburned skin.
During middle school, my classmates and I were
asked to highlight new vocabulary in our whole-class novels and then use
those words in sentences.
But after school, my friends and I would walk to the local public library
and sneak to the stacks that held the 610s: books about “The Human Body.”
We read every informational text we could find that discussed all the things
we were wondering about puberty and sexuality. Reading meant that we were
empowered to learn the things that mattered most to us. It meant that we
could ask our own questions—and find the answers we needed.
In high school, my English teachers assigned the classics. Shakespeare,
Hawthorne, Thoreau, Fitzgerald. Notice I said “teachers assigned” not “I
read”—I frequented the bookstore’s CliffsNotes section and learned how to
make A’s by parroting other people’s interpretations.
After high school, I had a summer job waitressing at a quaint Bed &
Breakfast with Ed. Ed was the B&B’s chain-smoking, middle-aged gay
bartender, and he was perhaps my most important reading teacher. “What are
you reading?” he asked the first time we met, and was horrified to hear that I
wasn’t really in the habit of reading anything. He made it his personal mission
to turn me into a true reader, the kind who wouldn’t dare board a plane or go
on a beach vacation or climb into bed without a book.
Ed spent countless hours talking with me about books. After he got to know
me better, he’d often say: “You’ve gotta read ____,” or “You’re going to love
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____.” He helped me to create my own personal reading canon. For Ed, it was
about learning who I was first and foremost because matching books to readers
is a very personal thing. He’d never suggest a text that was too hard or irrelevant.
In large part because of Ed’s influence, when I dated in my 20s, I dated
people’s bookshelves as much as I dated
the person. The first time I was invited to
someone’s apartment was my time to scope
out their reading life and history. My perusal
Reading meant
of their books revealed way more about who
that we were
these people were than what they told me over
empowered to
lattes at the local coffee shop.
Becoming a reader for me, unfortunately,
learn the things
meant living a different life inside and outside
that mattered
of school. Indeed, this separation between
school reading and personal reading is what
most to us.
I’ve devoted my professional life to trying
to remedy.
I want elementary teachers to be like Ed
(except for the chain-smoking part). I want
them to lean in, get to know their kids, and
help them develop rich reading lives. I want classrooms to be filled with
great books and stirring questions, and for kids to have the freedom and
choice to find the books that keep them interested and wanting more. I
want kids to be read to, to read to each other, and to read to themselves and
feel free to fall into imaginary worlds. I want this generation of children to
grow up and write an essay for a collection like this one in which they thank
their teachers and schools for helping them grow into the passionate and
thoughtful readers they are today.
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•••••
Jennifer Serravallo is the author of several books and resources to help teachers get to know their readers, match
them to good books, and support them as they develop an independent reading life. Her Independent Reading
Assessment in Fiction and Nonfiction gives students a choice of books to read independently and allows their
teachers to learn about their comprehension, reading habits, and interests from their responses. Serravallo is also
the co-author of Conferring with Readers and the author of Teaching Reading in Small Groups and two versions
of The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook, one for Grades K–2 and one for 3–6. Formerly a senior staff developer at the
Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, Serravallo is now a frequent presenter at state
and national reading conferences and consults with schools hoping to strengthen their reading workshops.
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Linda B. Gambrell
Great Mentors, Great Readers
y maternal grandmother was an avid and enthusiastic reader who
read everything from trash to treasure—from “spicy-dicey” detective
stories to Tolstoy and Dickens. As she often said, “There is nothing better
than a good read!” Because of my grandmother, I grew up loving books.
She was my first and perhaps most significant
“reading teacher.”
She liked to read poetry—sometimes silly verses
and sometimes verses that seemed very sad. I could
tell they were sad because of the way she read them
aloud—and I would snuggle up to her because I
thought she was sad and needed snuggling.
She read Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit to me over
and over again until I had memorized the entire story.
I remember “reading” it to my grandmother, carefully turning the pages
at just the right time. My most vivid memories, interestingly, are of my
grandmother reading aloud to me from the Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia
about topics as diverse as snakes, George Washington, and how to build a
bridge. We sat together, side-by-side on her large, green sofa with overstuffed pillows, as we read and discussed American Indian tribes of the
Southeast (Grandmother always insisted that she had Cherokee ancestors).
While I have only vague memories
of the fictional stories she read aloud
to me, I have vivid memories of my
grandmother reading informational
The central and most
text—the encyclopedia, newspapers, and
important goal of
magazines. Today, my favorite “read” is
reading instruction
a book that will take me on a real-life
adventure where I learn something about
is to foster a love
other countries and cultures (such as
of reading.
in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner),
about exciting treks through nature (Jon
Krakauer’s Into Thin Air), about fascinating
past eras through historical fiction (Simon
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Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman), and riveting memoirs (Jeanette
Walls’ The Glass Castle).
Early on in my teaching career I realized that the central and most
important goal of reading instruction is to foster a love of reading. We can
teach our students all the skills needed for proficient reading, but if they do
not choose to read, if they are not motivated to read, they will never reach
their full potential as engaged readers. Fortunately, I had a grandmother who
was a wonderful reading mentor. In a similar way, we need to mentor our
students, children, and grandchildren, so that they develop a deep love of and
appreciation for the sheer pleasure of reading.
•••••
Linda B. Gambrell, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at
Clemson University. She has served as president of the International Reading Association, Literacy Research
Conference, and Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers. Her research centers on literacy motivation,
reading comprehension, and the role of discussion in teaching and learning and has been published in Reading
Research Quarterly, Educational Psychologist, Elementary School Journal, and Journal of Educational Research
as well as in many books she has co-authored and edited. Linda is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame and
has received the Literacy Research Association Oscar Causey Award, International Reading Association William S.
Gray Award, College Reading Association Laureate Award, National Reading Conference Albert J. Kingston Award,
International Reading Association Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award, and the College Reading
Association A.B. Herr Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Reading. She currently serves as co-editor
of Reading Research Quarterly.
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Laura Robb
My Reading Champions
y brother Gene was four years older than me. By the time I turned
four, I was intensely jealous that he could read and I couldn’t. I burned
with desire to hold a book and move so deeply into it that, like my brother,
I wouldn’t even hear my mother when she called us to the table for dinner.
I begged: “Teach me to read, Mom! Please, please?!”
Finally, no doubt to end the constant nagging, Mom set
aside time after lunch for reading lessons, and soon after
my fifth birthday, I was reading.
I longed for my father, who was a great storyteller,
to read me the books that I couldn’t yet read on my
own. But my father worked three jobs to pay the rent
and feed his family. He didn’t have the time or energy
in the evening to read to me. Still, every Sunday
morning, my brother and I snuggled next to him in bed, waiting for him to
tell stories about his childhood. I can still hear my father’s voice describing
the brutally cold winters on the family farm in Poland. They didn’t have
enough money to burn wood in the fireplace all night. He told us that he
always volunteered to cut onions, turnips, carrots, and potatoes into chunks
for the beef stew. I can smell the aroma of that stew and picture my father
stirring the mixture, and when no one was looking, popping a chunk of
beef into his mouth. “I was always hungry,”
he explained. Hearing my father’s stories
drew me closer to books and the stories
they held.
Hearing my
My mother took my brother and me
father’s stories
on a trolley to the “big” library once a
month. In a week, I finished my stack of
drew me closer
books and reread each one again and again
to books and the
until we returned them. I’m sure that my
father felt my yearning for more books to
stories they held.
read. One Saturday afternoon when I was
seven, we walked two blocks to the small
library in our neighborhood, and my dad
filled out forms for a library card. That
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Saturday changed my life: I met Mrs. Schwartz, the librarian, and my dad
said, “You’re old enough to walk to the library yourself.” And so I did—
almost every afternoon.
In my mind, Mrs. Schwartz was “the keeper of books and the guardian
of stories.” Some days she read aloud to a small group of us regulars. The
best days, though, were slow. On those days, Mrs. Schwartz let me surround
myself with books I pulled from the shelves and browse through them to
see which ones I’d check out. Sometimes she’d recommend a book and tell
me a snippet of the story. But she always let me choose. Books became my
friends and were my solace when I felt lonely and not welcomed into the
girls’ social circle at school.
Yes, reading changed my life. It gave me the drive to work hard in school
so I could attend college, become a teacher, and share my love of reading with
my students. I can’t imagine a life without books and reading. And I can still
conjure the voices of my mother, father, and Mrs. Schwartz inside my head.
They’re with me every time I open the first page of a new book.
•••••
Author, teacher, coach, and speaker, Laura Robb has 43 years of teaching experience in Grades 4–8. She
continues to teach each year from December through February to maintain her close learning connection to
students. Robb has published multiple bestselling books including Unlocking Complex Texts, Teaching Reading
in Middle School, Differentiating Reading Instruction, and Teaching Middle School Writers. She’s developed
classroom libraries for Grades 3–9 and co-authored a nonfiction curriculum for middle school, XBooks and Smart
Writing: Practical Units for Teaching Middle School Writers. Robb speaks at conferences in the United States
and Canada and coaches teachers in Virginia. With her son Evan, a middle school principal, she has created the
Educator 2 Educator Foundation (e2efoundation.org) that raises money for grants to high-poverty schools to
purchase books for their central and classroom libraries. You can contact Robb at www.LRobb.com.
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& Timothy O’Keefe
Heidi Mills
Believe Kids into Being
t was 18 years ago when we envisioned what might be possible if we
created an elementary school grounded in literacy and inquiry. While
our vision was solid, we underestimated its power and potential.You see, our
students’ literacy histories, and their capacity to articulate what reading is and
who they are as readers, mirror the insights of
the most accomplished authors found within
the pages of this book.
At the Center for Inquiry (CFI) in
Columbia, South Carolina, we strive to make
reading, writing, and learning in school reflect
authentic literacy and learning in the world.
From the first day of Kindergarten until they
graduate as fifth graders, students learn to read
and write by reading and writing real books,
magazines, and newspaper articles. We “believe” our students into being
thoughtful, passionate, and engaged readers and writers by immersing them
in a culture steeped in genuine literacy experiences and by talking with
them reader-to-reader and writer-to-writer. To do so, we carefully scaffold
them by offering instruction at the point of need, guidance, and materials
that they can successfully read and write, all the while trusting they will grow
into literate beings in much the same way they learned to walk and talk. To
offer a glimpse of literacy learning within our school culture, we’ll eavesdrop
on one of Tim’s latest book club conversations.
A Book Club Conversation: Tim and His Third Graders
When I met with a small group of six third graders to discuss the final chapter
of Grandfather’s Dance by Patricia MacLachlan, four were crying. I was misting
over as well. All for good reason. “You know what I said about how it would
be a brave move if Patricia MacLachlan decided to let Grandfather die?”
eight-year-old Logan asked, sniffling. “Now I am not so sure I should have
said that.”
Later that afternoon, when Devyn’s mom stopped by my classroom. I
related how emotional our conversation about the last chapter had been.
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“I’m not sure how you do it,” Devyn’s mother replied, glancing at her
daughter whose eyes were still red-rimmed from her tears. “Devyn has gone
from being afraid of reading to becoming a voracious reader. She always has a
book in her hands.”
After getting to the fifth book of
MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall series, the
We “believe” our
children could barely wait for this, the final
students into being
book. Third-grader Logan and the others
had recognized the foreshadowing, the heart
thoughtful, passionate,
pills, the fact that Grandfather had said that
and engaged readers
he might not be able to attend young Cassie’s
and writers by
wedding, and the heartfelt good-bye between
Grandfather and an acquaintance. I think
immersing them in
we all knew it was coming. But when it
a culture steeped
happened, and the family found our beloved
in genuine literacy
Grandfather dead in the barn, we couldn’t
help but cry at his passing. “Think of it,” said
experiences and by
our student Carl Lewis during our debriefing
talking with them
with the whole class, “These characters are all
reader-to-reader and
make believe. She (Patricia MacLachlan) did
this to us with ink spots on a page.”
writer-to-writer. Inquiry into Literacy
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It’s not a coincidence that Carl Lewis
talked so eloquently about how authors
move readers. Our students regularly talk about books and they also inquire
into the reading process itself. Heidi teaches her preservice courses onsite at
CFI to immerse her graduate students in the beliefs and practices that make
a difference for teachers and learners. She recently asked Tim and his kids to
share their inquiry into the reading process with her preservice teachers. We
think that the children’s responses to the question, “What is reading?” are as
compelling as any found in this volume.
Devyn: Reading, to me, is understanding.
Kayla: Reading is learning. Because even if the book doesn’t have
facts, you still learn as you read.You learn new words and
new information all the time.
Tim: Yeah, I think you can learn about human nature, by reading
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stories. Even in fiction. After reading Charlotte’s Web, even
though most of the characters are animals, I learned about
kindness and craftiness, I learned more about human nature.
Sarah Beth, what is reading to you?
Sarah Beth: Well, let’s say you are reading a book about horses, it’s about
understanding and feeling like you are in the book. If you are
reading a book about horses, you’re the rider.You are the one
riding the horse and not falling off the horse and your hair is
blowing in the wind.
Carl Lewis:Mine goes with Sarah Beth.You have to be in the book if you
are enjoying the book.
Ty: Reading to me is like I’m Fireheart in Warriors and it’s like I’m
in the woods and I’m talking to Cloud.
When teachers create cultures of inquiry through literacy, kids live readerly
and writerly lives just as adults do outside of school. Kids also get in touch
with the reading process and themselves as readers by engaging in inquiry
around literacy. While it may not be typical to talk about texts and the reading
process so naturally, we know it’s possible and it’s worth striving for—for all
children everywhere.
•••••
Heidi Mills and Timothy O’Keefe have been married for 35 years and have two beautiful boys. Together, they
worked with brilliant colleagues to found the Center for Inquiry (CFI), a small school partnership between the
University of South Carolina and Richland School District Two in Columbia, South Carolina. The school is nationally
known as a demonstration site for inquiry-based instruction, collaborative research, and ongoing professional
development. O’Keefe is currently a second- and third-grade teacher at CFI. His classroom has been featured in
numerous books, articles, and educational videos. Mills is the John C. Hungerpiller Professor of Instruction and
Teacher Education at USC. She has published seven books by leading publishers in education and written numerous
journal articles on literacy and inquiry. Mills and O’Keefe are the recipients of the 2014 Outstanding Educator in the
English Language Arts Award by the National Council of Teachers of English. They consult with schools across the
country on content literacy and inquiry.
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Advocacy
I believe if you can turn a kid on to
reading, you’re saving a life. ~James Patterson
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James Patterson
The Lifesaving Power of Reading
s a kid, I was a good student but I wasn’t much of a reader. I read what
I was assigned but little else. I began to enjoy reading in college, when I
could finally read what I wanted to. After high school, I got a job at a mental
hospital to pay the bills. It was there that I found myself reading each night
until sunrise in an attempt to get through my shift.
Suddenly, I was plowing through serious literature
like Ulysses and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Then I
started reading bestsellers—The Exorcist and The Day
of the Jackal—and, I thought, hey, I might be able to
do something like that. I might.
But I didn’t truly realize the importance of
getting kids reading and helping kids to love books
until I had a child of my own. When my son Jack
was about eight, he was good at a lot of things but he didn’t love reading.
My wife, Sue, and I sat him down one summer and we told him that he
didn’t have to mow the lawn, but he had to read every day. Then we took
him to a bookstore and helped him pick out books that he would really
enjoy. By the end of that summer, Jack had read a dozen books that he
loved, and his reading skills had improved dramatically. Jack is now 16 and
he loves reading. He’s at the top of his class.
It’s a simple fact. If kids don’t read, they’re going to have a hard time
getting through high school. Kids who don’t read a lot are falling behind in
school, which means they are likely to fall behind in life. I believe if you can
turn a kid on to reading, you’re saving a life. And that’s what I’m trying to
do, in partnership with parents, teachers, librarians, publishers, other authors,
and booksellers—I want to save lives.
I created a website, ReadKiddoRead.com, to help parents and teachers
find books that kids will love—books that will turn them into lifelong
readers. But parents need to get involved, too, and that work starts at
home. Parents have to make sure that their kids are reading. They need to
understand this: there’s no such thing as a kid who hates reading. There are
just kids who love reading, and kids who are reading the wrong books. We
need to help them find the right books. There are millions of kids in this
country who’ve never read a book they love and that needs to change.
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As a part of all this, I began writing kids’
books myself and, well, they’re really becoming
my favorite thing to write. I love that I get to
be funny when I write kids’ books in a way
that I haven’t been able to when I’m writing a
thriller. I like to tell stories that will work with
kids, stories about kids taking responsibility for
themselves and their actions. And I think that
these types of stories are the ones that resonate
with kids. One of the most rewarding things
for me has been parents telling me, sometimes
with tears in their eyes, that one of my books
finally turned their kids on to reading. My
ultimate goal is to have kids read a book, and
say, “Give me another!”
•••••
There’s no such
thing as a kid who
hates reading.
There are just kids
who love reading,
and kids who are
reading the wrong
books. We need to
help them find the
right books.
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James Patterson holds the Guinness world record for the most #1
New York Times bestsellers of any author. In 2010, New York Times
Magazine featured Patterson on its cover and hailed him as having
“transformed book publishing.” His awards for adult and children’s literature include the Edgar Award, the
International Thriller of the Year Award, and the Children’s Choice Award for Author of the Year. He’s been called
the busiest man in publishing, and that’s not just because of his own books. For the past decade, Patterson has
been devoting more and more of his time to championing books and reading. His website, ReadKiddoRead.
com, is designed to help parents, teachers, and librarians ignite the next generation’s excitement about reading.
ReadKiddoRead was the winner of the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading prize. Patterson’s
Book Bucks programs, which include College Book Bucks, Summer Book Bucks, and Winter Book Bucks, provide
book gift certificates to be spent at local independent bookstores. Patterson is currently distributing one million
dollars in grants to independent bookstores and is donating over 100,000 books to the military overseas. He has
established scholarships in education at 20 schools, including Vanderbilt University, the University of Wisconsin,
and Manhattan College. Patterson received a bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College and a master’s degree
from Vanderbilt University. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife, Sue, and his son, Jack.
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Frank Bruni
Read, Kids, Read
s an uncle, I’m inconsistent about too many things.
Birthdays, for example. My nephew Mark had one on Sunday, and I
didn’t remember—and send a text—until 10 pm, by which point he was asleep.
School productions, too. I saw my niece Bella in “Seussical: The Musical”
but missed “The Wiz.” She played Toto, a feat of transspecies transmogrification that not even Meryl, with
all of her accents, has pulled off.
But about books, I’m steady. Relentless. I’m
incessantly asking my nephews and nieces what they’re
reading and why they’re not reading more. I’m reliably
hurling novels at them, and also at friends’ kids. I may
well be responsible for 10 percent of all sales of The Fault
in Our Stars, a teenage love story now released as a movie.
Never have I spent money with fewer regrets, because I believe in reading—not
just in its power to transport but in its power to transform.
So I was crestfallen when a new report by Common Sense Media came
out. It showed that 30 years ago, only 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent
of 17-year-olds said that they “hardly ever” or never read for pleasure. Today, 22
percent of 13-year-olds and 27 percent of 17-year-olds say that. Fewer than 20
percent of 17-year-olds now read for pleasure “almost every day.” Back in 1984,
31 percent did. What a marked and depressing change.
I know, I know: This sounds like a fogey’s crotchety lament. Or, worse, like
self-interest. Professional writers arguing for vigorous reading are dinosaurs
begging for a last breath. We’re panhandlers with a better vocabulary.
But I’m coming at this differently, as someone persuaded that reading does
things—to the brain, heart, and spirit—that movies, television, video games, and
the rest of it cannot.
There’s research on this, and it’s cited in a recent article in The Guardian by
Dan Hurley, who wrote that after three years interviewing psychologists and
neuroscientists around the world, he’d concluded that “reading and intelligence
have a relationship so close as to be symbiotic.”
In terms of smarts and success, is reading causative or merely correlated?
Which comes first, The Hardy Boys or the hardy mind? That’s difficult to
unravel, but several studies have suggested that people who read fiction,
reveling in its analysis of character and motivation, are more adept at reading
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people, too: at sizing up the social whirl around them. They’re more empathetic.
God knows we need that.
Late last year, neuroscientists at Emory University reported enhanced neural
activity in people who’d been given a regular course of daily reading, which
seemed to jog the brain: to raise its game, if you will.
Some experts have doubts about that experiment’s methodology, but I’m
struck by how its findings track something that my friends and I often discuss.
If we spend our last hours or minutes of the night reading rather than watching
television, we wake the next morning with thoughts less jumbled, moods less
jangled. Reading has bequeathed what meditation promises. It has smoothed and
focused us.
Maybe that’s about the quiet of reading, the pace of it. At Success Academy
Charter Schools in New York City, whose students significantly outperform
most peers statewide, the youngest kids all learn and play chess, in part because it
hones “the ability to focus and concentrate,” said Sean O’Hanlon, who supervises
the program. Doesn’t reading do the same?
Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia,
framed it as a potentially crucial corrective to the rapid metabolism and sensory
overload of digital technology. He told me that it can demonstrate to kids that
there’s payoff in “doing something taxing, in delayed gratification.” A new book
of his, Raising Kids Who Read, will be published later this year.
Before talking with him, I arranged a conference call with David Levithan
and Amanda Maciel. Both have written fiction in the young adult genre, whose
current robustness is cause to rejoice, and they rightly noted that the intensity
of the connection that a person feels to a favorite novel, with which he or she
spends eight or 10 or 20 hours, is unlike any response to a movie.
That observation brought to mind a moment in The Fault in Our Stars when
one of the protagonists says that sometimes, “You read a book and it fills you with
this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world
will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a
manner all their own, and I’m convinced that the shattered world has less hope
for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.
•••••
Frank Bruni is an American journalist. He was the chief restaurant critic of the New York Times, a position he held
from 2004 to 2009. In May 2011, he became the paper’s first openly gay op-ed columnist.
From The New York Times, May 13 © 2014 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission
and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or
retransmission of this Content without written permission is prohibited.
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Lucy Calkins
A Place to Start
ot long ago, when rooting around in the attic looking for a serving
dish I wanted for a dinner I was giving, I found an old paperback—its
blue cover torn, with a tea stain on the binding. It was titled, in large block
letters, Exodus. The picture on the cover was of a big tanker ship, a rough
looking man with a machine gun, and beautiful
woman in a nurse’s uniform.
I saw that title, and all of a sudden I was back
on the deck of that ship, with Kitty, the American
nurse, and Ari, the Israeli soldier, and all around us,
a group of orphans, refugees from the Holocaust.
The children on the boat had been hidden in attics
and basements; they had walked hundreds of miles
across icy fields and through dangerous towns.
And now, finally, they had almost made it to the Promised Land—but they
couldn’t land. They had been told to go back, but they wouldn’t, and so
they’d gone on a hunger strike.
Just seeing the front cover of that book
whisked me back in time to the burning hot
deck of that ship. I was Kitty again, terrified
How do we teach
for these orphans, and amazed by this rough
soldier who was willing to sacrifice them
the heart-breaking,
rather than have them continue to live without
soul-searching
a homeland. Until then, I never knew that a
book could take you to places where so much
kind of reading
was risked, where characters could be so brave,
that makes you
where sacrifice could be so intense, where
people could endure such unbearable danger
feel as if you are
and loss.
breathing some
As you might imagine, I never got the
serving dish. I stayed in the attic, reading,
new kind of air?
reading, reading. It was as if, by reading, I could
be Kitty. I could ensure that those orphans
would survive.
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How do we teach this kind of reading—the heart-breaking, soulsearching kind of reading that makes you feel as if you are breathing some
new kind of air? How do we teach the kind of reading that makes you
walk through the world differently because a light bulb is no longer just
a light bulb—it is filaments and electricity and the industrial revolution
and all that tumbled forth from that? How do we teach the power of
reading—reading that allows us to see under words, between words,
beyond words? How do we teach the intimacy of reading—of belonging
to a community that has a shared vocabulary, shared stories, and shared
petitions and projects?
Perhaps the place to start is by thinking about our own lives as readers.
•••••
Lucy Calkins, founding director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, is the author or co-author
of more than 40 books including the Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K–8
written with the TCRWP community and Pathways to the Common Core. Her foundational texts include The Art
of Teaching Reading, The Art of Teaching Writing, and Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades 3–5. Calkins is
the Robinson Professor of Children’s Literature at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she co-directs the
Literacy Specialist Program.
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Robert Needlman, M.D.
How a Doctor Discovered Reading
hroughout grade school, I regarded myself as a “smart boy,” and believed
that all of my teachers shared in this opinion. So imagine my surprise
when my first high school English paper came back with a well-deserved C!
Somehow, despite this feedback, or maybe because of it, I stuck with English
and eventually chose it as my college major. It was a
struggle. How could I say anything new about a poem
that had been famous for centuries? Never one to keep
names straight, I had an awful time with big novels.
After four years of hair-pulling all-nighters, medical
school came as a blessed relief. I had a human anatomy
coloring book and a stack of flash cards, and nary an
essay to write.
Four years later, I started my pediatric training at
Boston City Hospital. Joel Alpert, the visionary chairman of Pediatrics, declared
that while the Children’s Hospital across town specialized in curing cancer, at
Boston City, “Poverty is our cancer.” Energized by this challenge, I dove into
my work as an intern, which consisted of looking up the latest vital signs and
blood test results and repeating them on demand. By the end of three years,
having mastered the mechanics of hospital pediatrics, I was all set to start
curing poverty, without a clue as to how to do it.
Taking advantage of my bewilderment, the then chief of Developmental
and Behavioral Pediatrics, Barry Zuckerman, talked me into yet three more
years of training, as a fellow in DBPeds. It was, he pitched, a chance to read and
think, catch up on sleep, start a family, and learn, finally, to understand children.
The fellowship was, in fact, all of those things.
Barry shared the leadership of his division with Margot KaplanSanoff, a professor of early childhood education, and the trainees included
both doctors and masters-level early childhood students. We saw patients
together and learned from each other. Implicit in this plan was the idea
that pediatricians needed to broaden their view to encompass education,
developmental psychology, and public health. This was the incubator for
Reach Out and Read.
Down the street from my apartment was a little bookstore where one
day I found a copy of Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook. Soon after that,
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for a noon-time talk, I picked a couple of my favorite picture books and
read them out loud to my fellow docs. It was, some said, the best lecture
of the year. Working with an early childhood educator, with Barry’s
encouragement, I wrote a small grant to buy books for the waiting room.
First one child would come over for a story,
then another and another; parents started
reading to their babies.
We brought the books back to the
A joyful relationship
exam rooms and noted what happened
to books is part of
when the doctor held out a bright new
board book to a young baby; we listened to
what it means to
parents who talked, for the first time, about
be healthy.
their aspirations for their young children’s
education. One mother told me, “By my
reading to her, I believe she’ll be a reader; and
if she’s a reader, she could be a writer; she
could be a doctor; she could be anything.”
The intensity of that mother’s desire
convinced me that I was on to something
big. Through her, and others like her, I discovered my true love of reading,
not as an academic exercise or personal pleasure, but as a way to make the
everyday business of caring for young children more meaningful. From the
start, Reach Out and Read was grounded in a simple idea: that a joyful
relationship to books is part of what it means to be healthy. This would
have remained simply a good idea, but for the work of colleagues like Perri
Klass, Pam High, and Alan Mendelsohn, and of like-minded co-workers,
volunteers, and community leaders too numerous to name. Their energy,
creativity, and perseverance built the program and power it to this day. We
haven’t cured poverty yet, but we are working on it, one page at a time.
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•••••
Robert Needlman, M.D., co-founded Reach Out and Read in 1989. Today, some 12,000 doctors in nearly 5,000
clinics and offices in all 50 states participate, with affiliates in Italy, Germany, Haiti, and elsewhere. In 2007,
Reach Out and Read was awarded a UNESCO Confucius Prize. In 2013, the organization received the first David
M. Rubenstein Prize, awarded by the U.S. Library of Congress for a groundbreaking or sustained record of
advancement of literacy. Needlman is a professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University. He sees
patients at MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland’s county hospital.
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Robert L. Green
Dreaming New Realities: Literacy and Learning
t was my older sister Lethia who first led me to the portals that enabled me
to begin to understand the world—its realities and its dreams. I was three
years old and the portals were books.
During my pre-school years and my primary school education, all six of
my older brothers and sister showered me with books.
My parents encouraged them to promote reading in our
Detroit home. My parents, who had married in their
native Georgia and moved to the Motor City, dreamed
of success for their sons and daughters and knew that a
good education was the key to that kind of life.
My father never made it past the fourth grade; my
mother was in school until the ninth grade. However,
they valued education and made it clear to us that
educated blacks would have far more opportunities in life. They made sure that
we completed our homework and were provided with supplies and books—
and not just the textbooks required by schools. In addition, they made it clear
that they had high expectations and that we all needed to adopt high standards
for ourselves.
I embraced those standards. Reading further enhanced my sense of selfworth. My fourth-grade teacher was so impressed with my reading skills
that he once had me read a lengthy book passage before all my classmates.
Early on, I shared my parents’ expectation that I would grow up to become
a successful adult.
But during those formative years, I also learned about discrimination
and the barriers I would face. I learned about racism by reading Richard
Wright’s Black Boy and Native Son at the age of nine. A year later, I witnessed
discrimination in the form of segregation when I traveled with my father to
Memphis to attend a national meeting of the Church of God in Christ.
By the time I read Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred at age 12, I was
already beginning to think I might become an agent for change.
I met one of the world’s greatest champions for social justice, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., while pursuing a college education. I had been drafted in
January 1954 and was serving at the Army hospital at the Presidio in San
Francisco. I worked nights and pursued my undergraduate studies at San
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Francisco State College during the day. I completed my two-year Army
commitment in January 1956 and eventually took a part-time job as a prison
guard at San Quentin and as a Yellow Cab driver on the night shift as I
continued my education.
On June 27, 1956, I learned that Dr. King would be speaking that night at
the NAACP national convention in San Francisco. King had generated national
and international attention for his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
I was an admirer. I drove the cab to the conference site and worked my way in
to hear him speak. When he completed his address, I waited patiently among
the throng of other admirers, drew up close to him, and extended my hand.
“I’m Robert L. Green,” I said. “I want to get to know you.”
I pursued my Ph.D. studies diligently but I kept in contact with Dr. King
and his team of advisors at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) by writing letters. I had obtained my doctorate in educational
psychology in December 1962, and Michigan State University hired me in
January 1963. This was all due to the power of literacy invested in me at a very
young age by my family.
I was concerned about the education
of black boys and girls. I spoke out against
Reading helped me
school book publishing policies that limited
the expectations of young black children. At a
realize my dreams
1963 conference of publishers of elementary
and I continue to
school books at Michigan State, I asked
work to help us
executives how black children could have a
positive vision of themselves and their future
achieve the society
when they were not even represented in the
of Dr. King’s dream.
Dick and Jane stories that introduced them
to reading.
Dwight Follett, chairman of the Follett
Corporation, a major academic book publisher,
responded to the message. Despite his fear that
he would lose business in Southern school
districts, he decided to include black characters in elementary school readers.
Later, a number of other national publishers followed his lead.
I was a member of the MSU faculty in the spring of 1965 when I arranged
to bring Dr. King to Michigan State. Thousands filled an auditorium for the
address. After the speech, as I rode with him to the airport, he said: “You ought
to consider working with us in the South.”
Subsequently, I met with MSU President John Hannah and obtained a
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leave of absence. I joined SCLC in September 1965 and reported directly to
Dr. King. At that time, whites in the South denied all blacks the right to vote
regardless of their education level; but officially, whites claimed they were
disqualifying only those who could not read and write.
Initially, Dr. King wanted me to provide instruction in reading and
writing to semi-literate blacks to enable them to pass pre-vote literacy tests.
He also wanted me to help build bridges to other scholars who might be
able to help the Civil Rights campaign.
“Activism must be combined with education,” Dr. King said, signaling the
importance of my involvement. It was a phrase he would frequently invoke.
Dr. King demonstrated his devotion to learning by creating the
Citizenship Education Program (CEP) and he later appointed me to
head CEP in September 1965. After returning to Michigan State, I wrote
a grant proposal that generated funding in 1967 to launch the SCLC’s
literacy project, designed to promote adult education as well as student
achievement. King was one of the most literate and one of the most wellread persons I’ve ever known.
As a young professor, I continued to be informed and empowered by
books. For example, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Change, a 1965 book
by Kenneth B. Clark, motivated me to write my 1977 bestseller The Urban
Challenge—Poverty and Race. Clark and King were close friends.
In the decades since, I have authored and co-authored numerous
books, served as a college dean and university president, and provided
consulting services to public school districts nationwide. Reading helped
me realize my dreams and I continue to work to help us achieve the
society of Dr. King’s dream.
•••••
Robert L. Green, Ph.D., is a former president of the University of the District of Columbia and former dean of
the College of Urban Development at Michigan State University. He is now a dean and professor emeritus at
MSU. From 1965–1967, Dr. Green worked for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as the education director of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. The author of many books and articles, Dr. Green is co-author of Expect the
Most—Provide the Best, a book that examines the impact of expectations and innovation on education. He
has worked on school reform efforts in Memphis, Detroit, Las Vegas, and Portland, Oregon. In addition, he has
provided staff development for many public school districts and he promotes literacy and high expectations
for early learners nationwide.
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bL
Awele Makeba
My Storytelling Destiny
“
isten up baby, this is a story you won’t hear in school,” Daddy would begin
as he wove stories from his repertoire of family lore and historical accounts
of the African American Freedom Movement. He would also spin tall tales
while driving down south from St. Louis, Missouri, to Meridian, Mississippi,
to visit Bigmama Alice, my great-grandmother, and
other relatives. Daddy would bring his stories to life
with sound effects, emotions, and attitude as well
as movements and gestures (yes, while driving!).
Mesmerized by the telling, I would ask, “Daddy is
THAT true?” “Oh, yeah, baby, dat’s TRUE!” he would
say, grinning ear-to-ear, showing all 32 pearly whites in
the rearview mirror. I’d smile back, my eyes twinkling
with excitement. Mama would then swat Daddy’s
shoulder, laughing between her words, “Stop lying to that girl!” This was our
storytelling ritual.
My mother introduced me to the first book that I fell in love with, a royal
blue over-sized book of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. Mama would point to
a rhyme and I would “read” it, and it wasn’t long before I had memorized the
rhymes through rhythm, repetition, and our daily reading ritual. I learned lots
of words reading my Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes book over and over again
before Kindergarten. Every week, mom and I would visit the public library
to check out books and read to discover our favorites. By the time I entered
first grade, I was reading; as a result, my first grade teacher used to record me
reading stories for our classroom’s listening center.
My mom was told more than once during her parent-teacher conferences:
“ Your daughter is very animated. She is a talker! She is always telling
stories. Sometimes she is telling stories when she should be working on her
assignment.” Little did they know I was on the path to becoming a storyteller
like my father and Grandma Ruth. Destiny had called and I had responded. I
had accepted the quest.
Grandma Ruth read the family Bible and would tell me stories about
her daily adventures, bringing to life the characters from the Bible as well as
the folks she’d met on the bus, from her work, in her church—you name it.
Her gift was recreating dialogue and making voices resonate in your mind
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long after the telling. She played with intonation and inflection and painted
pictures with her words, taking you to the various settings while highlighting
the most important point of the story with delicious details.
I got to hear all of this from the best seat in the house, Grandma Ruth’s
lap, my head nestled in her soft bosom. Oh, what a precious gift she passed
on to me! She had longed to be in school when she was a child but, having
to work in the fields, didn’t make it past fourth grade. Still, like my father,
she was a powerful storyteller, and she was my mentor; she gave me a vision
of what was possible during storytelling. She modeled the tools of the teller
and she, like my father, modeled her knowledge about the power of story. I’ll
never forget the first time that I saw her testify at church. “I got a testimony
this morning,” Grandma Ruth began, and then revealed how one person’s
story can guide us all through a storm to help us find our inner strength.
As an early reader, I soon discovered that I had friends in books, too—
characters whom I could always depend on—characters who looked like
me, sounded like me, and who experienced struggles similar to the African
American families I knew. My storybook friends, like my real friends and
family, exhibited resiliency, perseverance,
pride, and the beauty of our culture. Eloise
Greenfield’s books mirrored back life that I
The oral tradition
knew starting with She Come Bringing Me That
Baby Girl. These were my very thoughts when
has taken me
my little brother was born. I especially loved
around the world to
the Logan Family series given to us by Mildred
Taylor. I could walk in the shoes of Cassie and
teach through the
experience her sense of agency. Sometimes I
power of story.
was Cassie.
The Logan family’s history of struggle
and resistance as upstanders (people who
stand up against injustice) was the same
history that my father used to teach me
about and sometimes I would overhear
Bigmama Alice, Granddaddy Joe, and my parents discussing when “children
were not meant to be seen nor heard.” They would whisper about voting
rights, freedom fighters, church burnings, Goodman, Cheney, and Schwerner,
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Ella Baker, and Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Cheney family were Bigmama Alice’s neighbors.
Father was right. Teachers didn’t tell the significant stories that he had shared
with me nor did they teach about the courageous foot soldiers who looked
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like me and who helped to advance democracy in the U.S. But I could read
this history in children’s literature and my dad, who was a thespian, took
me to see plays that had become classics set in this historical context. It was
performance as text.
The oral tradition has taken me around the world to teach through
the power of story, share my cultural heritage, promote my love of good
books, and bear witness to our common humanity.
I am Awele, daughter of Alice, granddaughter of two Ruths, greatgranddaughter of Bigmama Alice and M’dear Corrine, and great greatgranddaughter of Anna. It is my hope to find my best possible self as I
teach through the power of story!
•••••
Awele (ah WAY lay) Makeba has mesmerized audiences all over the world from Mississippi to Alaska, from the
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. to Hawaii in cultural centers, museums, universities,
festivals, libraries, churches, prisons, juvenile halls, schools, and TED-Ed Talks. She has taught through the power
of story in Russia, Australia, Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Russia, Taiwan, and Suriname on a U.S.
Department of State Tour. She is featured in award-winning CDs, including Tell That Tale Again, This Land Is Your
Land, Trailblazers: African American in the California Gold Rush, and The Undiscovered Explorer: Imaging York. She
is the recipient of the 2014 District Leadership Award for her speaker series Race Matters: Putting Race on the Table
in the Oakland Unified School District where she is a drama/literacy intervention specialist. For more information,
go to www.awele.com.
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Pat Mora
Bookjoy!
he sound of the desert wind carries me back to our rock house in El Paso,
Texas. Conversations and teasing in English and Spanish were the braided
music in our childhood home. Nighttime stories comforted my three siblings and
me. Words soaked into us—moon, luna; star, estrella. In time, books extended our
verbal experiences. Magic.
I wouldn’t be me without books. Early on, I
discovered their pleasure and power. All my reading was
in English, though my aunt and grandmother read their
prayer books in Spanish. Neither of my parents had the
opportunity to go to college, but they invested in books.
Among my favorites were the Childcraft series, particularly
the poetry book.
When I was home sick, I’d pull down that orange
volume and savor “Old King Cole,” “Daffy-Down-Dilly,” and “Lady-Bird, LadyBird.” Opening other books, in time, I rode in elegant carriages, learned with Clara
Barton, traveled to Russia, heard the wind on a faraway prairie, tasted sorghum
molasses, and solved mysteries with Nancy Drew—all through black symbols on a
white page. Such wonder.
Early in my life, books became a rich and dominant thread in my family
fabric, my memories. Reading was part of my school memories, too—waiting
in anticipation for a teacher to read aloud the next section of “B” Is for Betsy,
memorizing poems the nuns assigned year after year, rhythms that are still part of
me. Through reading, I’d discovered, and still discover, that sitting still at home or
in a plane, I can shed my physical self, forget about me, and enter a place or ideas
created by a fellow human I’ll probably never meet. Reading expands me.
When my three children were little, I experienced the intimate joy of sharing
a habit I loved—reading! How we reveled in Mother Goose and books by Beatrix
Potter and Richard Scarry. Now, I watch my adult children when, with a smile,
they hold their old, worn books. Each thinks, “This is mine. I loved it best.” They
savor book memories, the books that were/are their steady friends. That private
family joy prompted me years ago to write my own children’s books, to hand other
children some reading pleasure. I imagined a young stranger opening one of my
books. Now, my daughter, Libby, who writes with me, also visualizes an unknown
reader. Libby and I laugh together as we revise and revise to create “bookjoy.”
Because I’d grown up bilingual, I’ve reached out to children in English and
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Spanish. Slowly, I began to realize that not all our children were equally valued—
many children didn’t see the details of their daily lives affirmed on the page. I
realized that growing up a reader, I’d never read about a family who spoke two
or more languages, or who enjoyed cheese enchiladas on Friday night. What we
called American children’s literature wasn’t a balanced sampling of wonderful voices
and traditions, of our plurality. I discovered how parents who spoke many other
languages hadn’t had my extensive literacy experience in English; indeed, many
felt ashamed of not speaking English. Many lowincome parents, including English-speaking parents,
didn’t feel welcomed at schools, libraries, and
Together, all of us
museums nor had they been coached to support
their children’s reading habit.
who value all our
My reading life has been long and rich.
children can work
Reading helps me to understand my country and
my world—our cultural, religious, and personal
together to create
complexities.
a diverse reading
In 1996, I founded a family literacy initiative
nation, proclaiming
to honor all children and to share bookjoy with
them. It’s often known as Día, which means
again and again that
“day” in Spanish. Día, this daily commitment,
literacy is essential in
significantly altered my life and has, I hope,
enriched the lives of many committed literacy
a democracy.
supporters. By 2018, children of color will be the
majority in our country. Together, all of us who
value all our children can work together to create
a diverse reading nation, proclaiming again and
again that literacy is essential in a democracy.
I now have a grand baby, a granddaughter, and I’m savoring the opportunity
to share stories and books with Bonny, to continue a cherished family tradition. I
want Bonny and all our children to be anticipating the next story, their next book.
All our children deserve alegría en los libros, bookjoy.
b
•••••
Pat Mora is the author of more than 40 books, and has published poetry books for adults, teens, and children.
Zing! Seven Creativity Practices for Educators and Students is one of her books of nonfiction. Her more than 30
children’s books include books in bilingual formats and Spanish editions. An educator and literacy advocate,
Mora founded Día, El día de los niños, El día de los libros, a year-long family initiative that honors children and
connects them with bookjoy. Annually, across the country, April book fiestas reach out creatively to all children
of all cultures and languages.
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Nell K. Duke
A Passion for Social Justice
y far, the important book in my life has been Wild Violets by Phyllis
Green, a book I read over and over again in my elementary-school
years. The protagonist of the story is a fourth-grade girl named Ruthie,
described as follows:
Ruthie was probably the least important person
in Miss Farmer’s class. And she was surely the
poorest and most funny-looking. She was too
poor to have hot water and soap to wash her
straight, straw-thick hair, too poor for toothpaste
to brush her crooked teeth, too poor even to wear
the milky-brown, thick stockings that were held
up by garters and that all the other girls hated
and tugged at . . . Most of the time Ruthie had
no lunch to bring to school at all . . . Ruthie always pretended she
was eating so Teacher wouldn’t notice and become upset and write
notes to her father. She had an old, wrinkled lunch bag she had taken
from the wastebasket, and every lunch hour she got it out and wiggled
it around to make everyone think she was eating, too.
Reading about this child had a profound effect on me. It was not as
though I hadn’t been exposed to poverty. We weren’t poor ourselves—
though I wouldn’t say we were entirely financially secure either—but
the elementary school I attended drew, in part, from one of the poor
neighborhoods in town. There were many students who got “hot lunch”
for free. I remember students taunting one another that they got their
clothes or shoes from Kmart; I remember some didn’t appear to get new
clothes or shoes from anywhere. Yet it was Wild Violets that really revealed
poverty to me. Sometimes it takes the distance of a book to help you see
what’s right in front of you.
My concern with childhood poverty continued. In my dissertation, I
examined the literacy environments and experiences offered to first-grade
children in high-poverty versus wealthy school districts in the greater
Boston area. Differences between the two were legion. Children in the
high-poverty school districts had access to fewer books; the books were
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older and included a narrower range of types. The walls of high-poverty
classrooms included less print, and teachers referred to that print less
often. Children in high-poverty school districts had fewer opportunities to
experience instruction that involved reading and writing about science and
social studies topics, had fewer opportunities
to write for an audience beyond the teacher,
spent much more time completing worksheets,
Our celebration
copying, and taking dictation, and had fewer
opportunities to actually read books. In Wild
of reading must
Violets, Ruthie was assigned the role of the
involve the ongoing
maid in the school play, while wealthier peers
mission to give
had more coveted parts. My elementary-age
self felt the injustice of that acutely, and in my
all children the
dissertation work, so many years later, I felt that
opportunity to read
injustice again.
This anthology celebrates the joy and
and to become
possibilities of reading. I absolutely support
lifelong readers.
that. But part of the celebration must involve
the ongoing mission to give all children the
opportunity to read and to become lifelong
readers. I wish that future for Ruthie, for
Rayshon, for Roberto, and for everyone.
•••••
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Nell K. Duke, Ed.D., is a professor of literacy, language, and culture and faculty affiliate in the combined
program in education and psychology at the University of Michigan. She is also a member of the International
Reading Association Literacy Research Panel. Duke received her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore
College and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. Her award-winning research focuses
on early literacy development, particularly among children living in poverty. Her specific areas of expertise
include development of informational reading and writing in young children, comprehension development,
and instruction in early schooling, and issues of equity in literacy education. Duke’s books include Beyond
Bedtime Stories: A Parent’s Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills From Birth to 5, 2nd
Edition, and the forthcoming Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readers and Writers of Informational
Text Through Project-Based Instruction.
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Stephanie Harvey
First Lines and the Power of Books
“
orn at sea in the teeth of a gale, the sailor was a dog.” Now that’s a first line
for you. Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” has
nothing on Margaret Wise Brown’s The Sailor Dog. “Scuppers” sailed from port
to port, toting a hobo stick, exactly like the one I shouldered on warm summer
evenings as I slipped off to my secret hideout on the
northern shore of Nepco Lake in central Wisconsin
where I grew up.
I love first lines. I’m not great at hanging out with
a book for 50 pages to get into it. I like being roped in
straight out of the gate. “Mashed potatoes are to give
everybody enough.” I’m quite confident that the very
first line of the very first book I remember, Ruth Krauss’s
A Hole Is to Dig, is the reason I devour the Thanksgiving
mashed potatoes and gravy before even tasting the turkey.
“. . . if I ran the zoo,” said young Gerald McGrew. “I’d make a few
changes, that’s what I’d do.”
Dr. Seuss understood that it is easier to change things when we’re in charge.
The primary reason people want control may well be so they can make their
own changes.
The opening lines I absorbed from my early reading seem to have
influenced my outward life. I travel to exotic places, eat dessert first if I want,
and work to change the status quo. The opening lines from my later reading
seem to have shaped my inner life.
When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all.
It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth
your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish
childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.
Like many WWII-generation men, my father didn’t look back. He didn’t
talk about his perennially out-of-work father or the impoverished childhood
he endured as a result. Frank McCourt provided the insights that enabled me to
understand my dad’s Irish-Catholic heritage and his childhood rooted in poverty.
When he was nearly 13, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the
elbow . . .When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on
them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain
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that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said
it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us,
when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.
Harper Lee taught me more about the clandestine life of the boy with Down
Syndrome at the end of my block than any psychology class. By reading To Kill
a Mockingbird, I came to understand that isolating people who are different builds
fear and loathing. I also learned that inviting them in changes everything. Once
we kids on the block got the nerve to break through that isolation and invite
Davey to come out and play baseball, he turned out, just like Boo, to be the
kindest, most special kid in the neighborhood.
Hanging out with books changes us. Books shape who we are and who
we become. Too many kids today have limited access to books. The more
impoverished the home, the fewer the books. Without books, kids might not
run away with Scuppers, as I did, or learn, with Frank McCourt’s help, to
understand their families, or dream with Dr. Seuss of running things to change
them. We need to flood schools with books. After receiving a treasure trove of
donated books for her Title 1 classroom, Cheyenne, a Chicago fourth grader,
wrote, “Thank you for the books. We really
appreciate the books. Now that you have given
us the books, people have been checking them
Hanging out with
out left and right and there are barely any left.
books changes us.
People have been fighting over books, that’s how
serious it is.”
Books shape who
Although I am a pacifist at heart, if you’re
we are and who
going to fight over something, what could be
we become.
more urgent and essential than a struggle for your
share of books? Living with books creates endless
possibilities. Let’s make those possibilities real for
all kids; let’s get books into kids’ hands and send
them sailing with their own beloved first lines.
•••••
b
Stephanie Harvey has spent more than 40 years teaching and learning about reading and writing. An elementary
and special education teacher for 15 years, she now works as a staff developer, educational consultant, and author.
Harvey works around the world with educators, schools, and districts to implement progressive literacy practices. Her
work focuses on comprehension instruction, informational text literacy, and inquiry-based learning. Her books and
resources include Strategies That Work, Comprehension and Collaboration, Nonfiction Matters, The Comprehension
Toolkit series, and the National Geographic Ladders series. Insatiably curious about student thinking, Harvey is a
teacher first and foremost and continues to work in schools on a regular basis, savoring any time spent with kids.
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Kimberly N. Parker
Black Boys Who Read
hey wait at the door, hoodies turned up to block the cold from
their faces, sweatpants bagging at their ankles over sneakers. One
leans vertically against the doorjamb, looking through the window and
impatiently turning at the locked door. Another sits, balanced precariously,
impossibly, on a basketball, rolling slowly back and
forth in an irregular rhythm. As I barrel around
the corner, they turn in some sort of unplanned
symmetry towards me. I exhale in relief that eight
of the ten have shown up on a Saturday morning,
apologize to them for being late, and ask the
question that I’ve been turning around in my own
head for the week since we last met.
“So, what did you think of how it all ended?”
And as their eyes light up and we all spill inside the classroom together, they
can’t unwrap their words fast enough as we pull together a circle of chairs,
push aside desks, sip our collection of drinks and snacks, and dig into the fate
of Bobby in Angela Johnson’s The First Part Last.
Since I began teaching, I never believed the narratives that proliferate
about young men of color and reading. Every single young black man
I have known enjoyed reading once I took the time to get to know
them and to figure out what they were
interested in—sports, music, action, or
nonfiction. They were, of course, more
Reading allows
apt to stick with that reading if I also
created a climate that allowed them time
black boys the
to settle in and read. And, if they could
ability to dream,
read in the company of their friends? Well,
then, they might just keep reading forever.
to think, to feel, to
What they most wanted, overwhelmingly,
love, and to be free.
was to read books that allowed them to
either see themselves within texts or to
dream themselves into the texts. Many
had never read a book where the main
character shared their racial or ethnic
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background, was multi-faceted, and came from a different social class.
These characteristics they desired were the ones that I sought to get into
their hands. It was not unreasonable for me to think that their lives would
be reflected in the texts they were either required to read or that they
opted to read on their own. It was not impossible for me to find those
texts, to gather them together, and to talk about the connections books
hold for all of us.
That is why they wait—as patiently as young people can wait on a
Saturday morning—for me and this informal book club we’ve organized.
It began as an initiative to give struggling readers some more practice with
reading, but it quickly morphed into reading lots of culturally relevant
texts that appealed to them, spending some time talking about the books,
and building a literacy community to which—once they belonged—they
retained membership long after I stopped being their official teacher. Over
the years, I’ve convened different varieties of these book clubs, all with
the same goals: to pull together black and brown boys to read high-quality
books that allow them to see themselves in all of the nuanced, beautiful
possibilities. That is what reading makes possible: reading allows black boys
the ability to dream, to think, to feel, to love, and to be free.
•••••
Kimberly N. Parker, Ph.D., teaches English at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her teaching and learning interests focus on the reading experiences of young black men and how to build
positive literacy environments for them within classrooms. Parker is also the current secondary representativeat-large for the National Council of Teachers of English.
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Pam Allyn
How Reading Made Me Strong
he first time I read Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery,
I turned the last page, took a deep breath, and started it all over again.
I think I did that ten times before my mother pulled it from my hands and
put the second book in the series in its place. What a miracle! That the
adventure continued, to know that more would
come! While Anne’s hair was bright red (or “auburn”
as she liked to hope) and mine was brown (or “ash
blond” as I liked to hope), I felt we were the same
inside. We both had that same fierceness that made
our emotions big and strong but our hearts also so
easily broken. Anne met her friend Diana and in an
instant, in her own storytelling, claimed Diana as her
“kindred spirit.” Anne was a writer, a poet, a teller of
stories. Diana, of the shiny black hair and bright blue eyes, became a kindred
spirit because Anne told the story that made it so. Anne, an orphan when
she arrived on Prince Edward Island, needed to be strong, resilient, and
independent. But through her storytelling, she made the characters beloved
to one another and turned loneliness into community.
I also read every one of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women books and
C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia many times over. I loved how Jo cut
off her hair to support her family, and how she found a space for herself in
her attic to write her stories while also being the best friend to her cherished
sister Beth who suffered so. I loved how Lucy was so curious, going through
the wardrobe door into the new world of Narnia, and finding her way all
alone.Yet also being a friend to Aslan, stroking his poor head even when he
was stripped of his glorious golden mane. All these girls were like mirrors
and windows: mirrors of myself as I was, sometimes lonely, sometimes fierce,
and windows into the worlds of girls I was longing to become: stronger,
fiercer, braver, yet also surrounded by love and friendship.
Many years later, I was reading aloud E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web to a
group of girls in Kenya. By the age of 12, Diana had already led an extremely
hard life, growing up in a place where girls do not often go to high school,
where lack of access to literacy prevents girls from achieving their dreams.
When we got to the part where Fern stands up to her father, demanding he
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save the baby pig Wilbur, Diana leaned forward, rapt. She said, “I’ve never
seen a girl stand up to a man like that before.” Out of this response, I created
the organization LitWorld which has initiated LitClubs all over the world to
bring girls out of isolation and into safe networks of readers, where books
put into a girl’s hand change her life, as they
did mine.
Anne, Jo, and Lucy opened up worlds of
I created LitWorld
possibility for themselves and for me through
to bring girls out
their stories—the stories Anne told to Diana
that forged their friendship, the stories Jo
of isolation and
told to her sisters to keep them strong, and
into safe networks
the stories Lucy and Mr. Tumnus told to
of readers, where
each other: a relationship that would warm
up cold and bitter Narnia and make magic
books put into a girl’s
possible, even in the most frozen places. That
hand change her life,
incredible opening of worlds of possibility
continues today, as Fern speaks up to her father
as they did mine.
and shows my Diana in Nairobi an entirely
different path for the future—so that from a
very hard place of beginning, her heart and
spirit, too, can soar into possibility.
•••••
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Pam Allyn is a literacy advocate and internationally renowned educational leader. She is the author of many
books, including Best Books for Boys and What to Read When. She founded and leads LitWorld (www.litworld.org),
a 501(c)(3) organization advocating for literacy as a human right that belongs to every child.
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Rebecca Constantino
Reading, Our Beloved Companion
olace. Escape. Adventure. Friendship. In a home where a single mom was
raising five children, a sister had run away for a time, a brother was involved
with drugs, as the youngest, I was often alone and frequently sad. Books, reading,
and stories became my companion. I was very fortunate to be raised by a reader.
Print of all kind filled my house. Almost every room had
a bookcase with books three deep. Books lined the stairs
and trailed down the hallways. Magazines subscriptions
were a staple, not a luxury. I had access to Judy Blume,
Agatha Christie, and Shakespeare. As a young child, I
curled up with The New Yorker, starting with the cartoons
and graduating to “Goings On About Town.” With
multiple encyclopedia sets and decades worth of National
Geographics, I traveled the world while sitting in my
upstairs hallway. Often, I would grab my bike and a book and take off to a park
to sit by the lake and read. From age seven to 14, I had a morning paper route.
After delivering it all over the neighborhood, I would read the entire newspaper
from front to back. Many of those mornings, I was already bleary-eyed because I
had stayed up too late reading.
Reading created the person I am. Lifelong friendships were struck over a
conversation on a bus about a book I was reading. Today, I still relate to people
based on the books that they’ve read. Reading is my constant pleasure and
escape. I never leave home without something to read.
Eventually, my reading path led me to graduate studies where my area of
study was access to books among under-served children and school libraries.
My research showed the utter lack of reading material among children living
in poverty. Not by design but as a response to necessity, I started a nonprofit
organization called Access Books that stocks school libraries in the greater Los
Angeles area. The formula for this program is simple. Donors provide money
to purchase books, volunteers refurbish the library and catalogue the books,
and children have access to books they would not normally have based on the
current funding and priorities in our nation.
One Saturday, at a school library we were refurbishing, I got to know nineyear-old Marcus a bit. Feisty, inquisitive, and a little domineering, he followed me
around all day. He craved constant reassurance that he was doing things right. As
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with all our volunteers, Marcus took home a book. He attended a school with
one of the most vibrant, involved, and in-tune principals I have ever encountered.
The principal revealed to me that Marcus had a challenging life. His mother
worked on the streets and the home was chaotic and violent. There was rampant
drug use and itinerant father figures. Marcus was known for his outbursts at
school. He had few friends and was withdrawn most days. The principal made an
early pact with Marcus—when he felt stressed
like he might “bust out of his body,” he could
come to the office and sit with a book. He was
Reading is my
there a lot.
I was spending time in that school’s office
constant pleasure
doing follow-up research and would see Marcus
and escape. I never
there often. I brought him more books. He
leave home without
started requesting Clifford so I found a set for
him. He moved onto Captain Underpants but he
something to read.
was most enthralled with the Diary of a Wimpy
Kid series. He did not have any room in his
apartment, so he had his own little bookcase
in the principal’s office. One day, we started
chatting and I asked him what he liked about
reading, about books. He paused a while and
responded, “Well, first off, these books are the only thing that I know are just
mine. They don’t belong to nobody else. I never had that feeling before.” After a
moment of silence he added, “I guess mostly, books make me laugh, they make
me forget about stuff. I guess they just make me feel good.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
Not long after that conversation, the principal let me know that the
Department of Children and Family Services had notified the school that
Marcus was to be removed from his home and placed in foster care. Scared and
uncertain, he asked the social worker, “Do I get to take my books?”
From the outside, Marcus, an African American boy from Watts, and me, a
white girl from the suburbs, seemed to have nothing in common. The truth,
though, is that we are really a lot alike.
b
•••••
Rebecca Constantino, founder of Access Books, holds a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Learning. She has published
articles and books in the areas of literacy development, equity in education, urban schools, and cultural perspectives of
language acquisition. Constantino has been involved in language and literacy development programs in Russia, South
Africa, and Eastern Europe. While serving as a foster parent, she adopted two daughters and later hatched one son.
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ReLeah Cossett Lent
Danger: Literature Thieves
love words, and have since I was old enough to find magic in mere squiggles
on a page. As I grew older, words became increasingly important to my
development in every way—my intellectual and emotional growth, my widening
perspective of people and places, my very sense of self. It came as no surprise that
I eventually became a book-thumping English teacher; for
my part, I could hardly believe I was actually being paid
to deal in words and, what’s more, to share with students
the transformational power of reading.
As a new teacher, I must admit that I often exhibited
more naïveté than many of my middle school students.
I would have said, for example, that reading was an
inalienable right, a sort of subset of the pursuit of
happiness. As a result, students who were heretofore
not interested in reading became positively addicted to the mysterious worlds
created by Piers Anthony or the real-world events in the lives of Judy Blume’s
teens. Eventually, many of these kids developed a hunger for words and, together,
we sated our appetites at every opportunity. During this halcyon period, it was
simply unthinkable that anyone would attempt to steal books from my students by
burying them under a shroud of shame.
“Inappropriate, dark, vulgar, obscene.” The slurs echoed from local newspaper
articles and church pulpits, often with the accusers never having read the entire
works on trial. What started as a complaint from one parent about Robert
Cormier’s I Am the Cheese, a brilliant young adult novel that prompted my
seventh–graders to engage in deep thinking and thoughtful discussion, eventually
became an internationally-publicized censorship battle. The offended parent was
not satisfied when I offered her child an alternate selection; she insisted that no
child should be allowed to read the novel, even students whose parents had given
them permission, in writing, to do so. Like a nasty virus, the complaint spread to
other books and other classrooms. Students were questioned by parents who feared
they were being sullied by language or ideas in print, teachers were threatened and
slandered, and books themselves became targets of ridicule and abuse.
In the end, more than 60 books were banned in Bay County, Florida,
many of which had existed in the canon for years, such as Hamlet and
Great Expectations. Finally, when headlines such as “Redneck Riviera Bans
Shakespeare” began to have a big impact on the county’s reputation and,
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thus, its tourism potential, the classics were reinstated. It took a lawsuit,
however, to bring I Am the Cheese back to the classroom.
By then, the damage was done, and it was just as ugly as the destruction
of a hard-cover copy of I Am The Cheese set aflame and photographed by
the Washington Post as a dramatic illustration of the events taking place in
our district. Sadly, most teachers from this small Florida town, chilled by the
devastating effects of censorship, removed all of
Cormier’s books from their shelves and thought
twice before allowing any young adult novel
back into the curriculum. I wish I could say that
If we do, indeed,
such sweeping censorship is an anomaly, but that
believe in the power
would be untrue. Even today, books such as Mark
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Toni Morrison’s The
of reading, we must
Bluest Eye, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and,
also believe that each
amazingly, even Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants,
have been banned in schools.
of us has an obligation
No doubt my contribution to this uplifting
to protect that power
anthology strikes a pessimistic note and for that
so that it remains
I apologize, but I know firsthand that reading
can be a two-edged sword. It can cut to the
available to every
heart and transform lives, but it can also frighten
person who seeks it.
some into acting as literature thieves—and
too often these perpetrators get away with the
crime. If we do, indeed, believe in the power of
reading, we must also believe that each of us has
an obligation to protect that power so that it
remains available to every person who seeks it.
•••••
b
Now an international consultant, ReLeah Cossett Lent began her career as a teacher before becoming a founding
member of a literacy project at the University of Central Florida, where she implemented leadership teams and
professional learning communities statewide. The author of nine books including Common Core CPR, Overcoming
Textbook Fatigue, and Literacy Learning Communities, she has also authored numerous journal articles and
blogs. Lent is currently chair of NCTE’s Standing Committee Against Censorship, and her book on censorship, Keep
Them Reading, is influencing district policies around the country. Additionally, her work with Jimmy Santiago
Baca, award-winning poet and writer, led to a book and CD for reaching at-risk students. Lent is the recipient of
both NCTE’s and ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Awards. She was also honored with the PEN/Newman’s Own First
Amendment Award in 1999. In 2013, she received Wisconsin’s Intellectual Freedom Award and Florida Council of
Teachers of English President’s Award. You can find her at www.releahlent.com.
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Erin Gruwell
A Legacy Lives On
ords. My life has always been about words. When I was younger, I read
words voraciously—learning their power, their persuasion, their passion.
As an adult, I use words diplomatically, determinately, and deliberately to teach,
to write, and to inspire.
I have always enjoyed reading, but as a teacher, I was
able to watch the transformative powers a book can have
on my students. The book that changed my life and the
lives of many of my students was Anne Frank:The Diary
of a Young Girl. I remember being afraid that my students
would not understand the book’s power because many of
them had never opened a book, much less read one in its
entirety. At the age of 14, they hated reading and thought
all books were written by “dead white guys.” Unlike me,
most never sat on their daddy’s lap and read bedtime stories. Unlike me, they did
not have bookshelves lining their walls. And unlike me, they did not make trips
to the local library or a bustling book store. Unfortunately, many of my students
did not have books in their home, or even worse, did not have a father present to
read to them.
I wanted my students to find their voice within the pages of Anne’s diary,
and perhaps be inspired to write their own. When I first presented the book to
the class, however, I was met with resistance. Cynical students asked me, “Why
do I have to read books about people who don’t look like me, or talk like me,
or come from where I come from?” In their minds, Anne Frank didn’t come
from their ’hood, and lived in a country they couldn’t even identify on a map. Stumbling for an answer, I told my students, “You are much more similar than
you are different.” Listening to the concerns of my students, I began to wonder, “How does the
life and diary of a young Jewish girl in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands connect
with the lives of my struggling students?”
I eventually found that, although my students’ lives and Anne’s life were not
mirror images of each other, the same hatred and violence that surrounded Anne
also surrounded my students in the neighborhoods of Long Beach, California.
While their city may not have been occupied by the Nazi Regime, they were
living in an undeclared warzone filled with gang violence and death. Many of
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my students had seen friends die due to senseless violence, while others had
friends who were in jail for murder. These horrible atrocities connected my
classroom to Anne’s attic, and my students found that they could use more than
bullets and fists to express themselves. Anne helped my students find their words,
and I followed her idea and had them fill the pages of their own journals with
their experiences and their secrets. I had hoped
that one day their stories would inspire others to
stop the hate and embrace love. Without the help
Reading allowed
of Anne Frank’s diary, I fear that my students may
each of us to reach
have become just another statistic in the Long
Beach records, case numbers that become buried
our prospective
and forgotten with no voice to tell their stories,
students, and
rather than the wonderful individuals that I know
and love today as the Freedom Writers.
reading allowed a
Recently, I was invited with my former
legacy to live on!
students, the Freedom Writers, to teach lessons at
the Anne Frank House to teachers from around
the globe. Although we spoke different languages,
came from different countries, and had different
students—we all shared a passion for reading, and
the love for a certain book. I discovered that Anne Frank’s book is one of the
most read books in the world, and no matter what language her story has been
translated to, her words transcend gender, race, and economics. Anne’s story
connected us and was the catalyst for us to instill the love of reading in our
students—whomever and wherever they may be. Anne reminded us all, that
“in spite of everything, I truly believe that people are good at heart.” Reading
allowed each of us to reach our prospective students, and reading allowed a
legacy to live on!
b
•••••
Erin Gruwell is a teacher, an education activist, and the founder of the Freedom Writers. By fostering an educational
philosophy that values and promotes diversity, she has transformed the lives of many troubled teens. Inspired by
Anne Frank, Gruwell and her students captured their collective journey in The Freedom Writers Diary, the #1 New York
Times bestseller. Their inspiring story was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring two-time Academy Award
winner Hilary Swank. While Gruwell has been credited with giving her students a “second chance,” it was perhaps she
who changed the most during her tenure at Wilson High School. She decided to channel her classroom experiences
toward a broader cause, and today her impact as a teacher extends well beyond Room 203. Gruwell founded the
Freedom Writers Foundation where she and some of the original Freedom Writers currently teach teachers around the
world how to implement her innovative lesson plans in their own classrooms.
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bO
Sue Pon
Immigrant Women: Reading Toward Hope
akland, California, is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world.
As the coordinator of the Oakland Family Literacy program, I have the
good fortune of working with English-learning families from around the world
who are learning to become literate in American society. These families enrich
my life and continually teach me not to take my own
literacy for granted.
I am humbled by our most recent immigrants, by
their resilience and determination to learn even when
they may have no formal education and their own
native language is not based on the Roman alphabet.
Here are the stories of three courageous women,
related by their teachers:
Samara, Age 20, Yemen (as told to Victoria Carpenter)
It felt like a small hurricane when Samara arrived each morning; black hijab
billowing, shoulders weighted with straps of bags and packs, her three-yearold in tow lugging her own small backpack. Much to my frustration, Samara
and her daughter habitually arrived to class late and
left early. She’d settle her daughter at childcare then
make her way through the classroom to an empty
seat, seemingly oblivious to the disruption her amiable
arrival was causing—the whole chaotic process to be
repeated in reverse later when she left early.
It was hard to be too angry with Samara; she was
such a warm and funny person. But I still asked her
more than once if she could be on time, and to please
Victoria Carpenter
stay for the entire class, pointing out that she was missing
an hour of instruction each day. When this general beseeching went nowhere,
I took her aside, hoping for a more serious conversation where I might glean
some deeper insight into her antics. Perhaps together we could come up with a
remedy. The following is Samara’s story.
Samara lived with her brother. He forbade her to leave the house without
a male relative as chaperone, let alone go to school. He threatened that if she
disobeyed, she and her young daughter would be sent back to Yemen.
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Each morning, just after her brother left for work, Samara gathered up her
daughter, bags, and books and stealthily left the house. She’d walk three blocks
to catch the first bus, then another few blocks to catch the second that took her
within walking distance of our class in Oakland’s Chinatown. An hour and a
half later, she would do the trip in reverse, anxiety propelling her to get home
before her brother returned for lunch. It took her 50 minutes each way.
From then on, it seemed a small miracle that Samara and her daughter
would arrive at all.
Halimo, 50, Somalia (as told to Audrey Sakai)
Despite living in a refugee camp in Kenya for 21 years, Halimo is a dignified
and beautiful woman—tall, striking, and elegant, her clothes flowing around
her. A widow with six children, Halimo arrived in
Oakland in March 2012 without knowing any other
Somalian families here. Her children range in age and
attend elementary school, high school, and community
college. Halimo studied Arabic for five years in a mosque
in Somalia but never learned to read or write her mother
tongue, Somali.
I’ve never seen anyone so eager to learn. From her
first day in class, Halimo was “drinking it in.” Even during
Audrey Sakai
Ramadan, she came to class every day, all day, despite being
weak from fasting. Halimo travels one hour each way on the bus, crisscrossing
Oakland, to take her children and herself to class.
During her first month in class, Halimo learned to identify letters and to
say their sounds. She carefully wrote the alphabet, filling an entire notebook.
The second month, Halimo manipulated word cards, matching words with
pictures. After two months, Halimo strung both words and pictures together
into a sentence. When Halimo read her sentence, she couldn’t contain herself
and I could feel her adrenaline. Her face beamed, ”I did it! I can actually
read!” Halimo remembers that moment in October 2013, feeling “oh, happy.”
Rafiqah, Age 26, Yemen (as told to Wendi Olson)
Rafiqah’s four children attended elementary school, but growing up in Yemen,
she had never been to school herself. Now 26 and living in a troubled Oakland
neighborhood, Rafiqah walked her children and baby stroller across the freeway
overpass and gathered in my Family Literacy classroom to chat with the other
moms before the first bell rang. When I walked in the door, Rafiqah’s children
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would look up and study me with big eyes. Rafiqah
had apple cheeks and a lively, sonorous voice that rose
above the others.
But her animation disappeared when English
lessons began. Throughout September and October,
she scowled in frustration as she tried to learn her
first alphabet. One day, Rafiqah slammed her palm on
the desk and said, “Teacher! ABC!” Her self-advocacy
Wendi Olson
snapped me to attention. From then on, we opened
each class with the alphabet song until she had it down.
Rafiqah sat with a group of traditional women in black abayas from her
rural Yemeni village, but she stood out with her splashy-patterned hijabs. She
had a fiery personality. In February, while the class made Valentine’s Day cards,
she ripped her red heart in half. In this way, I learned that her husband had
abandoned her with six children, returning to Yemen to take advantage of the
four-wife law.
But on Wednesday, November 7, 2012, she was ebullient. She met me at the
door of the classroom with a big grin and her first English sentence.
“Happy Obama!” she said.
I gave her a high-five. “Happy Obama!”
Later in the year, while reading a picture book about Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor, she pointed excitedly at an illustration of a courtroom. “Me,”
she said. “Job.” In this way, I learned that she dreamed of becoming a lawyer. If
anyone has the drive to do so, Rafiqah does.
___________________________
These women are not just learning for themselves, they are also learning
for their families and for their communities. Becoming literate in American
society empowers these mothers to support and to advocate for their children’s
education. As active parents, they are becoming important partners in their
children’s schools. Some are even becoming school leaders, improving education
for all children. Becoming literate in American society empowers them to
pursue their families’ dreams, to persevere, and to press forward toward hope.
•••••
Sue Pon coordinates the Oakland Family Literacy program. The program provides skill development instruction to
parents in the Oakland Unified School District, empowering them to support their children’s academic progress and
to develop family engagement and leadership skills in full-service community schools. Publications include Sharing
English Together, an instructional English as a Second Language (ESL) DVD/workbook series featuring the daily lives
of Oakland families learning together.
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Marcus Curry
Reading Makes All Things Possible
m ily Dickinson wrote, “I dwell in possibility.” That’s what reading has
done for me. It has opened up a world of possibility, empowering me to
shape my reality and to help others shape theirs.
I realized the power of words at a young age. My teachers always described
me as imaginative and poetic—an “over-describer.”
Words were a gift and during the lonely years of
teenage angst, words provided cathartic release.
The first book I remember is the Bible. Those
rich, dramatic stories I discovered at church filled my
mind with wonder and helped shape my worldview.
The second book I distinctly remember is The BFG by
Roald Dahl. I read it in the first grade, and immediately
fell in love with storytelling. I began filling journals
with imaginative stories.
At my performing arts high school, I developed an even greater
appreciation for reading and writing. I learned that stories contain messages;
they are oracles of wisdom and truth that can impact the way a person might
live his or her life. I had never looked at stories that way. Once I learned how
to peel back the layers of meaning, I was changed. I had discovered a world
of allegory, satire, parody, and symbolism—my eyes were opened. I felt a
calling to introduce others to the power of story—to help them experience
the life-changing potential of literature.
As a sophomore at Temple University, I chose to become a Secondary
English Education Major. I went from simply exploring literature to learning
how to teach literature. With each stage of my relationship with story, I
discovered a deeper connection. And with each turn of the page, from
elementary school to college, I discovered even greater potential in books.
When I became a high school English teacher, I witnessed the transformative
power of literature. I saw students begin to think and process their lives
differently as a result of the stories we studied. However, there was one group
that I could not reach. This group of students had skin that looked like mine.
They were African American students who could not relate to Shakespeare
or Whitman. I regard Shakespeare and Whitman as geniuses, but their works
simply weren’t penetrating the minds of my black students.
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I was teaching in the suburbs just outside of Philadelphia, and the
school where I taught was very diverse. I had students from various
cultures and socio-economic classes, but many of my African American
students, particularly the males, were not interested in reading. After several
conversations with these students, I was inspired to write a novel of my
own. I reconnected with my inner storyteller. I wanted to write a novel
that spoke to an aspect of the black experience, but I wanted the novel to
be more than just high interest. I wanted it to be a story with both urban
edge and the sophistication of a Toni Morrison novel. And I wanted to
send a message—one that would be applicable to all students. My novel—
You Down With O.P.D.?—is a fictional story about two inner-city teenage
males who lack the resources to fulfill their dreams and aspirations until
they are given that opportunity by their musical idol. This rap icon gives
these two young men the principles of success: O.P.D., which stands for
Organization, Planning, and Discipline. These young men go on a journey to
discover the meaning and power of these three principles, and it changes
their lives.
Once I had completed and self-published the novel, I knew I wanted
to share it with others, so I joined forces with my wife, who was also a
high school English teacher. She taught in
inner-city Philadelphia, and many of the
demographics and challenges she faced were
I felt a calling to
very different from those I experienced
introduce others
in the suburbs. By working with her, I
discovered another hidden treasure of
to the power of
literature. Up until that point, I had seen
story—to help them
how reading good literature could help
students academically, but I had never
experience the lifeseen how reading could actually change a
changing potential
student’s life.
Many nights, my wife would come
of literature.
home exhausted and frustrated. She told
me that she was trying to take a group of
her students to Paris. Many of them had
never even left their neighborhoods, and
all of them lacked the resources to finance
the trip. Planning a trip to Paris seemed nearly an impossible feat, but I
saw the passion in my wife’s eyes. I wanted to know how I could support
such a noble cause, and then it hit me. “Why don’t you have them read and
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discuss my book? It may give them motivation,” I said. Little did I know
that we would embark on a journey that would change these students and
profoundly change us. This group of teenagers began to read and discuss
my novel. They identified with the characters, and they were taught how to
find the richness in the symbolism. I spoke with them, and I was moved by
their personal stories of hardship. I understood the economic disparity that
crushed their hopes and limited their dreams, and my wife and I decided to
do something about it.
We formed the OPD Movement Inc., a nonprofit designed to spread
a message about success. Literature changed these students’ minds, touched
their emotions, and ignited a passion within their hearts. They achieved their
goal, raising thousands of dollars to go to Paris—a goal many had scoffed at.
Reading changes lives—anything is possible.
•••••
Marcus Curry is a former high school English teacher. He is an author, playwright, and spoken word artist. He
received his bachelor’s degree in Secondary English Education from Temple University, later attending Cabrini
College where he obtained his M.Ed. with a concentration in Reading Instruction. He is the founder of Urban
Parables LLC, an education publishing company and consultation firm formed by a team of educators with the
purpose of producing literature that is academically enriching and socially progressive. He is the author of the
novel You Down with O.P.D.? and the co-founder of the OPD Movement Inc. He currently works as an education
consultant and leader of the OPD Program, a social educational program geared towards urban students and
based in the Washington, D.C. area. He resides in Maryland with his wife Nafisah and their dog Roscoe. To find out
more about the work Curry is doing, reach out to him at www.urbanparables.com or www.opdmovement.com.
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Kristina Mundera
Open the Door to Reading
earing hushed giggles coming from the other side of my fence, I looked
up from my book to peer through the banana trees that filled my
backyard. Three young girls were leaning over the barbed wire, arms draped
over each other’s shoulders, hands hiding their smiles, and eyes shining with
hope. After several more giggles, the oldest finally
plucked up her courage to speak.
“Maestra, could we come in and read your books?
We’ll be really quiet!”
Before inviting the girls into my one-room home,
I considered for a moment how tired I was after my
teaching day (which had included a long, mountainous
hike to several rural schools). But, of course I would
open the door—what teacher would turn away young
children yearning to read? As we sat huddled on
the cement floor poring over my small selection of
children’s books, I marveled that this might be the first
time these girls had held a book in their hands.
Books have been such an integral part of my life, I can’t imagine how many
books I have read over the years. Stored away in my memory, I have a large
collection of beloved books that I can access whenever I need them—books
that inspire me to stretch toward living my values, challenge me to consider
new perspectives, take me on exciting adventures, offer me useful information,
and console me and validate who I am in the world. In addition to the books I
hold in my memory, there are thousands of books whose titles I have forgotten,
but whose content helped shape who I am today.
Who would I be today without these books? Without this love of reading?
When I turned 13, my mother gave me 13 beautiful hardbound
children’s books. Although this gift might seem odd for a child on the brink
of adolescence, my mother knew me well: my passion for the art form of
beautiful children’s literature has only deepened with age. Several years later,
as I prepared to work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua, it seemed only
natural to dedicate as much space as possible in my limited luggage for the
Spanish translations of a few of my favorites.
The three girls who arrived unannounced at my house read through
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every book I had that first night. That didn’t deter them, however, from
returning the next evening, this time with cousins and friends in tow. Soon
my little house was bursting almost every evening with children who
sprawled happily across my floor, immersed in the miracle of reading. This
was obviously a different experience from what they typically experienced at
school: memorizing letters off the blackboard.
What started as a simple request to read eventually turned into a large
community project, which is now moving well into its second decade. With
funds for materials coming from family and friends in the States, we built
a children’s library, a playground and, several years later, a preschool with
the volunteer labor of community parents and children alike. By the last
construction project, I was back in California teaching in a Spanish immersion
program. During school vacations, however, I’d hop on a plane and return to
Pueblo Nuevo to support our amazing librarians in their work.
A few years ago, we decided the time was ripe to expand our work
into the local schools. We wanted to create a similar program in which
rural teachers in Nicaragua could check out
classroom sets of books and move their reading
instruction off the blackboard and into quality
Books open new
literature. Which books merited the investment
worlds of possibility
of a full class set? Where were the stories that
reflected and validated these children’s identity?
that develop our
“Let’s write our own books,” I finally
intellect and inspire
suggested. “We can take pictures here in the
community to illustrate them.” How easy it
our imagination.
all sounded. Of course, that was before I knew
anything about photography.
Now picture me a year later, shoes covered
in mud, sliding down a slippery incline under
the cloud forest canopy as I animatedly shout,
“Here come the monkeys —run! Yes, like that! Remember, Diego, you’re
scared!” I throw myself into the mud, lift my camera and attempt to hold
it still enough to capture the band of young children tumbling after me.
We wipe the mud off our faces and laugh and laugh and laugh, before
trying it all over again. By this point in the project, I had learned enough
about photographing children to know that every image correctly
captured is a treasure only to be found among a hundred or so mistakes.
While not all of the books were as challenging to photograph as those
for our fiction series, The Adventures of Deyla and Diego, over the course
b
253
of creating 20-plus titles, we experienced our fair share of adventures and
difficulties. All of the hard work was worth it, though, the moment I saw
our finished books in the hands of the first class of students. The hum of
distracted first graders was replaced with silent excitement as Irma turned
the pages of our book, Where Is Diego? We heard cries of, “Look, that’s
our bus,” and “Hey, he looks like my cousin!” as each child read through
individual copies of our guided reading titles. It struck me, as I watched the
lesson unfold, that I had never seen this scene in Nicaragua before: every
student had a book in his or her hands—something we typically take for
granted here in the States.
The name for our nonprofit is Abren, which in Spanish means “they
open.” In English, the name stands for “A Book to Read Empowers
Nicaraguans” and over the past 15 years, I’ve been blessed to witness how
books and the love of reading can do just that. Books open new worlds
of possibility that develop our intellect and inspire our imagination. All
children deserve an intimate relationship with reading.
And that little girl who asked me to open the door to reading so many
years ago? Her love of reading grew and grew and carried her all the way
through her schooling and into college, where she is now studying to be a
teacher. She student teaches at the library she helped build with her very
own hands.
•••••
Kristina Mundera headed to Pueblo Nuevo, Nicaragua, in 1999 as a Peace Corps volunteer with the hope of
being able to offer her new community as much as she knew she would receive in return. As it happened, the
children’s library project she started changed Mundera’s life as well as the lives of the families it continues to
serve. Abren’s most recent project has been creating a series of children’s books that joyfully reflect the culture
of rural Nicaragua. For more information, go to www.abren.org.
254
bW
Closing Thoughts
ithin the pages of this book, you’ll find 118 distinct voices from
every region of the country, including Alaska and Hawaii—
and across the sea to Great Britain as well. One author attends college;
others tend to their grandchildren and read to them daily. Some write
and illustrate the books that open hearts wide; others study or teach the
comprehension strategies that open the “intimate conversation” of reading.
Academic or artist, researcher or teacher, our magnificent authors share a
deep, true love of reading.
All celebrate reading for enriching their lives; some thank reading for
saving their lives. And all share a fervent wish that children around the
world enjoy abundant access to books so that they, too, may “live many
parallel lives” and dream what may be possible for their own.
In the midst of editing this anthology, I lost my beloved mother. She
was 88 years old and so fortunate to have lived a long and fulfilling life. Still,
no one is ever prepared to lose a parent. I found myself turning to books—
specifically, to my favorite poets—for comfort: Pablo Neruda, Naomi
Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, William Stafford, and Walt Whitman. Each one
gave me the words to frame my grief, to help me accept the unacceptable,
to understand the unfathomable.
Our authors explain, in this rich and varied collection, what books
and reading have given them: they write of pleasure and play, comfort
and companionship, introspection and illumination. “The ability to read is
humanity’s legacy,” suggests Eduardo Puig. We read of lives so different from
our own and, yet, often discover that beyond the surface distinctions of
ethnicity, culture, gender, and age, all of us, all of humanity, are “connected
at the core.”
We must read, Frank Bruni writes; our well-being depends on it:
“Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts
in a manner all their own, and I’m convinced that the shattered world
has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.”
Reading is a miracle. Every day, we can open a book, enter a world
of possible, and heal ourselves, renew ourselves, and rejoice that we’re not
alone. We have books, we have each other, we have hope.
—Lois Bridges
255
b
List of Authors
256
Ada, A. F., 114
Green, R. L., 224
Ongtooguk, P. C., 101
Adams, M. J., 127
Gruwell, E., 244
Oxenbury, H., 18
Alexander, K., 160
Haddix, M. M., 104
Parker, K. N., 236
Allen, M., 84
Hailey, K., 66
Paterson, K., 12
Allington, R. L., 156
Hansen, J., 148
Patterson, J., 216
Allyn, P., 238
Harvey, S., 234
Pearson, P. D., 184
Alston, L., 36
Heard, G., 81
Pinnell, G. S., 192
Atwell, N., 202
Heath, S. B., 45
Pon, S., 246
Baca, J. S., 48
Herrera, J. F., 122
Beers, K., 60
Hiebert, E. H., 50
Probst, R. E., 58
Bishop, R. S., 15
Houk, F., 94
Blount, R. Jr., 120
Hunter, P. C., 54
Blow, C. M., 40
Jago, C., 14
Bruni, F., 218
Johnston, P. H., 63
Burke, J., 76
Kittle, P., 198
Burningham, J., 20
Klein, A. F., 142
Burns, M., 158
Laminack, L. L., 136
Ryan, P. M., 162
Calkins, L., 220
Lane, B., 108
Scieszka, J., 152
Campoy, F. I., 52
Lehman, C., 96
Serravallo, J., 206
Constantino, R., 240
Lent, R. C., 242
Sharp, C., 17
Cruz, J. M., 170
Loker, C., 26
Short, K. G., 172
Culham, R., 134
MacKeen, D., 98
Sibberson, F., 34
Cunningham, A. E., 72
Mah, G., 146
Sitomer, A. L., 32
Curry, M., 249
Makeba, A., 227
Siu-Runyan, Y., 86
Deedy, C. A., 117
Manzano, S., 42
Sloan, G., 74
Draper, S. M., 164
Mapp, K. L., 200
Smith, C. R. Jr., 178
Duke, N. K., 232
McBride, B., 24
Smith, M. W., 110
Dybdahl, C. S., 101
Miller, D., 186
Edwards, P. A., 189
Mills, H., 212
Engle, M., 154
Mlawer, T., 176
Fillmore, L. W., 124
Mora, P., 230
Finkle, D. L., 167
Moua, M., 138
Fisher, D., 204
Mundera, K., 252
Fletcher, R., 153
Myers, W. D., 150
Fountas, I. C., 192
Needlman, R., 222
Walther, M., 30
Gallagher, K., 92
Neuman, S. B., 21
Wilhelm, J. D., 69
Gambrell, L. B., 208
Noguera, P., 82
Wong, J. S., 22
Gentry, J. R., 140
Nye, N. S., 80
Yatvin, J., 180
Green, K. K., 195
O’Keefe, T., 212
Yuan, Y., 28
Puig, E. A., 144
Rami, M., 132
Rasinski, T., 130
Richardson, J., 196
Robb, L., 210
Routman, R., 174
Stipek, D. J., 88
Strickland, D. S., 182
Sumida, A., 106
Tatum, A. W., 90
Trejo, J., 56
Trelease, J., 16

A WoRLd oF PoSSiBLE

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